Critical Readings on Tang China [Volume 4] 9004380205, 9789004380202

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Critical Readings on Tang China Volume 4

Paul W. Kroll - 978-90-04-38020-2 Downloaded from Brill.com11/15/2020 06:09:18AM via San Francisco State University

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Critical Readings on Tang China volume 4

Edited by

Paul W. Kroll

LEIDEN | BOSTON

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The Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available online at http://catalog.loc.gov Library of Congress Control Number: 2018962592

Typeface for the Latin, Greek, and Cyrillic scripts: “Brill”. See and download: brill.com/brill-typeface isbn 978-90-04-28113-4 (hardback, set) isbn 978-90-04-28169-1 (hardback, vol. 1) isbn 978-90-04-28168-4 (hardback, vol. 2) isbn 978-90-04-28167-7 (hardback, vol. 3) isbn 978-90-04-28166-0 (hardback, vol. 4) isbn 978-90-04-38015-8 (e-book, vol. 1) isbn 978-90-04-38016-5 (e-book, vol. 2) isbn 978-90-04-38019-6 (e-book, vol. 3) isbn 978-90-04-38020-2 (e-book, vol. 4) Copyright 2019 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Brill Hes & De Graaf, Brill Nijhoff, Brill Rodopi, Brill Sense, Hotei Publishing, mentis Verlag, Verlag Ferdinand Schöningh and Wilhelm Fink Verlag. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Koninklijke Brill NV provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to The Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910, Danvers, MA 01923, USA. Fees are subject to change. This book is printed on acid-free paper and produced in a sustainable manner.

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Contents Volume 1 Tang Emperors’ Accession Dates and Reign Titles (nianhao 年號) xi General Introduction 1 Paul W. Kroll

History—Political, Intellectual, and Military 1 Wen Ta-ya: The First Recorder of T’ang History 11 Woodbridge Bingham 2 The Rise to Power of the T’ang Dynasty: A Reassessment 17 Howard J. Wechsler 3 The T’ang Imperial Family 41 Denis Twitchett 4 Canonical Scholarship 100 David McMullen 5 Neo-Confucianism and Neo-Legalism in T’ang Intellectual Life, 755–805 163 Edwin G. Pulleyblank 6 The Structure of T’ang Selection 214 P. A. Herbert 7 Decree Examinations in T’ang China 237 P. A. Herbert

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8 The Bureaucratic Apparatus [of T’ang Historians] 267 Denis Twitchett 9 Bureaucracy and Cosmology: The Ritual Code of T’ang China 295 David McMullen 10

Wei Cheng’s Thought [esp. Regarding Government] 346 Howard J. Wechsler

11

Imperial Power and the Ruling Class [under Empress Wu] 367 Richard W. L. Guisso

12

The Chou Dynasty [of Empress Wu] 404 Richard W. L. Guisso

13

The Career of Yang Kuei-fei 455 Howard S. Levy

14

The Flight from the Capital and the Death of Precious Consort Yang 482 Paul W. Kroll

15

Foreign Policy 503 P. A. Herbert

16

The An Lu-shan Rebellion and the Origins of Chronic Militarism in Late T’ang China 518 Edwin G. Pulleyblank

Volume 2 Literature and Cultural History 17

T’ang Literati: A Composite Biography 545 Hans H. Frankel

18

Transparencies: Reading the T’ang Lyric 566 Stephen Owen

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19

The Significance of the fu in the History of T’ang Poetry 584 Paul W. Kroll

20 An Offering to the Prince: Wang Bo’s Apology for Poetry 597 Ding Xiang Warner 21

Tamed Kite and Stranded Fish: Interference and Apology in Lu Chao-lin’s fu 636 Paul W. Kroll

22

A Re-evaluation of Chen Ziang’s “Manifesto of a Poetic Reform” 666 Timothy Wai Keung Chan

23

On Li Po 694 Elling O. Eide

24 Li Po’s Letters in Pursuit of Political Patronage 731 Victor H. Mair 25 Li Bai’s “Rhapsody on the Hall of Light”: A Singular Vision of Cosmic Order 762 Nicholas Morrow Williams 26 Tu Fu 825 Stephen Owen 27

Tu Fu’s Social Conscience: Compassion and Topicality in his Poetry 894 Shan Chou

28 Poems in Their Place: Collections and Canons in Early Chinese Literature 936 Pauline Yu 29 Heyue yingling ji and the Attributes of High Tang Poetry 967 Paul W. Kroll 30 The Formation of the Tang Estate Poem 1001 Stephen Owen

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Volume 3 31

Lexical Landscapes and Textual Mountains in the High T’ang 1021 Paul W. Kroll

32 Historical and Literary Theory in the Mid-Eighth Century 1060 David McMullen 33 The Manuscript Legacy of the Tang: The Case of Literature 1096 Stephen Owen 34 Literary Collections in Tang Dynasty China 1126 Christopher M. B. Nugent 35 A Study of the Jinglong Wenguan Ji 1171 Jia Jinhua 36 The Old-Style fu of Han Yu 1204 David R. Knechtges 37

Another Go at the Mao Ying chuan 1230 Elling O. Eide

38 The Old Men [of the Early Ninth Century] 1235 Stephen Owen 39 The Inscription of Emotion in Mid-Tang Collegial Letters 1281 Anna M. Shields 40 Yüan Chen and ‘The Story of Ying-ying’ 1326 James R. Hightower 41

Nostalgia and History in Mid-Ninth-Century Verse: Cheng Yü’s Poem on “The Chin-yang Gate” 1360 Paul W. Kroll

42 Remembering Kaiyuan and Tianbao: The Construction of Mosaic Memory in Medieval Historical Miscellanies 1441 Manling Luo

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43 The Dancing Horses of T’ang 1476 Paul W. Kroll 44 Falconry in T’ang Times 1504 Edward H. Schafer 45 Public Values in Calligraphy and Orthography in the Tang Dynasty 1540 Amy McNair

Volume 4 Religion 46 The Role of Buddhist Monasteries in T’ang Society 1559 Kenneth K. S. Ch’en 47 Buddhism and Education in T’ang Times 1580 Erik Zürcher 48 Imperial Patronage in the Formation of T’ang Buddhism 1622 Stanley Weinstein 49 Stūpa, Sūtra, Śarīra in China, c. 656–706 CE 1663 T. H. Barrett 50 The Birth of a Patriarch: The Biography of Hui-neng 1714 Philip B. Yampolsky 51

Metropolitan Chan: Imperial Patronage and the Chan Style 1743 John McRae

52 Time after Time: Taoist Apocalyptic History and the Founding of the T’ang Dynasty 1776 Stephen R. Bokenkamp 53 Taoist Ordination Ranks in the Tun-huang Manuscripts 1805 Kristofer M. Schipper

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54 Taoism in the T’ien-pao Era, 742–56 1829 T. H. Barrett 55 Li Po’s Transcendent Diction 1839 Paul W. Kroll 56 Immortality Can be Studied 1875 Jan De Meyer 57

The Worshippers of Mount Hua 1915 Glen Dudbridge Index of Personal Names 1949

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Religion

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The Role of Buddhist Monasteries in T’ang Society Kenneth K. S. Ch’en When Buddhism was introduced into China around the beginning of the Christian era, it was confronted with a civilization that was opposed to many of its prevailing tenets and practices. Buddhism looked upon life in this world as suffering; the Chinese regarded earthly life as something to be enjoyed to the fullest, since this was the only life that he had. Buddhism aimed at terminating the continuous cycle of rebirths with its incumbent suffering to seek the tranquillity and peace of nirvana; the way to accomplish this was withdrawal from society to lead the religious life. The Chinese aimed at fulfillment of his destiny by leading an active life to achieve what the late Hu Shih once called the immortality of the three W’s (work, words, and worth).1 The Buddhist believed that family life should be abandoned and celibacy regarded as the highest virtue; the Chinese, on the other hand, regarded family life as the backbone of Chinese society, therefore considering the perpetuation of the family line to be the highest duty of every Chinese. The Buddhist advocated that members of the monastic community should be freed from the burdens of earning a living and should subsist only on alms donated by the faithful; the Chinese strongly held that every able-bodied male should till the soil and every ablebodied female should weave. The Buddhist contended that the community of monks enjoyed an extralegal position, not subject to the jurisdiction of secular law; the Chinese maintained there is no separation of church and state, that all monks should obey the laws of the imperial state. Faced with this kind of opposition, it was no wonder that the newly introduced Indian religion experienced great difficulty in gaining a foothold on Chinese soil. After some two centuries of propagation, the foreign religion could claim only three known centers, one in east China,2 one in south China,3 Source: “The Role of Buddhist Monasteries in T’ang Society,” History of Religions 15.3 (1976): 209–30. 1  Hu Shih, “Concept of Immortality in Chinese Thought,” Harvard Divinity School Bulletin 43, no. 3 (1946): 40–41. 2  Center in P’eng-ch’eng, kingdom of Ch’u in what is now parts of Kiangsu and Shantung. See biography of Prince Ying of Ch’u, Hou Han-shu, chüan (hereafter “c.”) 79; biography of T’ao Ch’ien in Hou Han-shu c. 103; San-kuo-chih Wei- chih c. 8. 3  Tonkin in present-day North Vietnam. See preface of Mou-tzu li-huo-lun in Hung-ming-chi c.1, Taishō tripitaka (hereafter Taishō) 52. 1b.

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and one in north China in the capital of Loyang.4 The number of monasteries could be counted upon the fingers of one hand, converts were few, and translations of texts meager. In a way, the religion survived the first couple of centuries mainly because many Chinese considered it as but another branch of Taoism. With the downfall of the Han dynasty in ad 220, China entered an era of division between north and south lasting three and a half centuries, until the unification achieved by the Sui dynasty in 589. This Sui was short-lived and was followed immediately by the powerful and glorious T’ang dynasty, which lasted for three centuries. While the political fortunes of the Chinese were at a low ebb during these centuries of disunity, the fate of Buddhism took a sharp turn upward. It seems that the disunity and attendant turmoil were just the conditions needed for the religion to gain adherence among the Chinese. There is not time here to discuss the various factors contributing to this spread among the Chinese. Suffice it to say that by the beginning of the T’ang, Buddhism had gained converts from all groups in Chinese society, from the peasantry at the bottom, through the gentry and the educated, to the members of the imperial family at the top. According to a T’ang catalog of Buddhist sutras, the K’ai-yüan-lu, at the end of the Han dynasty in 220, there were 200 items in 292 chüan translated into Chinese, whereas in 730 the number had risen to 2,278 items in 7,046 chüan.5 Monasteries were now to be found all over the land, in the teeming population centers of the great cities, or in remote sparsely settled areas, on the summits of famous mountains far away from human habitation, or in luxuriantly shaded valleys alongside rushing waterfalls. The fervent and passionate devotion to the religion was expressed most concretely by the thousands of Buddhist images carved on the cave walls in Tun-huang, Yün-kang, and Lung-men, and in the widespread popularity of the Pure Land School, while the intellectual vigor of the religion was exemplified by the development of such highly philosophical schools as the T’ien-t’ai, Hua-yen, San-lun, and Wei-shih. One of the main reasons why the religion was able to develop and gain widespread following among the Chinese was its ability to serve the needs of all elements of Chinese society. The institution through which the religion carried out its various functions in serving the people was, of course, the monastery, which served as the center for the religious life of the monks and faithful 4  See memorial presented by Hsiang K’ai in 166, Hou Han-shu c. 60 hsia; H. Maspero, “Les origines de la communauté bouddhiste de Loyang,” Journal asiatique 225 (1934): 87–107; biography of An Shih-kao in Kao-seng-chuan c. 1, Taishō 50. 323a–24b. 5  K’ai-yüan shih-chiao-lu c. 10, Taishō 55. 579c.

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laymen. Besides the spiritual blessings which the monasteries dispensed to all, each group in Chinese society was able to derive special benefits from the presence of these Buddhist monasteries in their midst. Far from being institutions separated and detached from the activities of the mundane world, the Chinese monasteries played active and multifaceted roles that touched the lives of a large proportion of the Chinese during the T’ang dynasty. Let us now turn our attention to these different roles of the Buddhist monasteries. At the outset, we shall limit ourselves by excluding from discussion certain functions of the monasteries. For instance, it is self-evident that the monasteries were centers for the religious training of novices initiated into the order. Again, all monasteries provided opportunities for worship by the laity, burning incense, reverencing images of the Buddhas, seeking aid and solace from the bodhisattvas, etc. Furthermore, the monasteries were centers of Buddhist thought. Famous teachers were associated with certain monasteries, and students wishing to master a certain school of philosophy would converge on them. All these may be called the normal religious activities carried on in a Buddhist monastery, and we see no need to stress them. What we would like to emphasize are those functions which are to some extent unique with the Chinese monasteries. First, monasteries were regarded as the spiritual arm of the imperial government. Just as the imperial armies served as the military arm to protect against internal rebellion and external invasion, and the imperial bureaucracy as the political arm to ensure the enforcement of law and order, so Buddhist monasteries served as the spiritual arm—first, to promote the spiritual welfare of the empire and the well-being of the emperor; and second, to ensure that the protective influences of Buddhist deities would be extended to the imperial family and empire. The Chinese world consisted not only of the people and the objects that we see around us, but also of spirits and unseen forces that are everywhere. Such unseen forces had to be propitiated in order that they would not bring misfortunes and calamities to the people and the ruling dynasty. To make sure that unseen forces were operating for the dynasty’s benefit, T’ang emperors prudently patronized those religions, Taoism and Buddhism, whose deities claimed to have the powers to protect the realm against the unseen evil forces. They were taking out a kind of insurance policy to protect against the unknown. In the case of Buddhism, the instruments developed were the national monastery,6 created by imperial edict and located all over the empire, and 6  Fo-tsu t’ung-chi c. 39, Taishō 49.359c; c. 40, Taishō 49.375a; Chiu T’ang-shu 6. 3b; Hsin T’ang-shu 4. 5a; T’ang-hui-yao 50.20b.

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palace chapels7 established by the ruling family within the imperial precincts. The national monasteries were accorded preeminent status in their respective communities; they were inhabited by highly educated monks, the elite in the monastic community; and they were supported by funds from the imperial treasury. We might say that the monks in these national monasteries were treated like members of the civil bureaucracy in having all their needs supplied by the state; they had no need to depend upon alms from ordinary laity for sustenance. In these national monasteries were staged a number of ceremonies which had nothing to do with Buddhism but which were performed for the welfare of the imperial state. These ceremonies included the celebration of the imperial birthday and the observance of memorial services in honor of deceased emperors. Firsthand accounts of these ceremonies are furnished by Ennin, a very observant Japanese monk who traveled extensively in north China during the years 838–47. The usual method of celebration was to stage vegetarian feasts for the clerical community and the civil and military dignitaries of a locality. On the eighth day of the twelfth month, 838, Ennin recorded in his diary that, this being a national memorial day, fifty strings of cash were donated by the throne to the national monastery in Yang-chou to prepare a vegetarian feast for 500 people. In the ceremonies which began at 8:00 a.m., the minister of state and the commanding general led the procession to worship the Buddha. Those participating in the ceremonies burned incense, waved pennants, and chanted psalms. After the ceremonies, everyone partook of the vegetarian feast.8 When foreign invasions threatened the empire, the emperors would call for assistance in repelling the invaders not only on the military forces but also on the protective influences of Buddhist deities. This was achieved through the recitation in the monasteries or the palace chapels of a sutra entitled Jenwang-ching [Sutra on the benevolent kings].9 For this recitation, images of the Buddhas, bodhisattvas, and arhats would be assembled and placed on elaborately decorated high seats within the monasteries, accompanied by an elaborate display of lamps, pennants, and flowers. If the sutra were recited twice a day amidst such arrangements, then all the protective spirits in the kingdom would assemble to defend the empire against external aggression.10 We read in the Buddhist chronicles, for instance, that in 765 the Tibetans crossed the 7  Tsan-ning, Seng-shih-lüeh, Taishō 54. 247bc. 8  Ennin, Nittō-guhō junrei gyōki 1. 14, in Dai Nihon Bukkyō zensho, vol. 113. 9  There are two translations of this sutra, one by Kumārajīva, Taishō 8. 825a–34a, and one by Amoghavajra, Taishō 8. 834a–45a. 10  See Kumārajīva’s translation, Taishō 8. 829c–30a.

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borders and threatened the capital. This prompted the emperor to order the Jen-wang-ching distributed to the monasteries and recited there. The emperor himself attended the meeting in the capital. Within a short while, we are told, the invading Tibetans were pacified.11 Another group of monasteries figured prominently in this role as the spiritual arm of the empire; these were located on top of Mount Wu-t’ai in north China and dedicated to the bodhisattva Mañjuśrī, the bodhisattva of wisdom.12 According to Chinese Buddhists, this bodhisattva had a habit of making periodic visits to those monasteries. Once he appeared in the form of a pregnant woman at a vegetarian feast and asked for two shares of food, one for herself and one for the unborn child within. The donor of the feast understandably refused to give her two shares, saying that the unborn child was not there to eat its share. An argument followed, and the pregnant woman then resumed her original shape as Mañjuśrī, flying away in the air to the consternation of the assembly. Because of this legend, we are told that thereafter participants in the vegetarian feasts on Mount Wu-t’ai were given whatever they requested.13 The monks in these monasteries were constantly looking for signs that would indicate the appearance of Mañjuśrī. Such signs might be a pervading fragrance in the mountains, the appearance of strange lights on dark nights, or the sight of a colored cloud in the cloudless sky. Whenever such signs appeared, they were immediately reported to the throne, for they were regarded as auspicious omens boding well for the welfare and prospects of the empire and the imperial family. It is not surprising, therefore, to read in Ennin’s diary that the imperial treasury would make immense donations to these monasteries dedicated to Mañjuśrī. In 840, for instance, we are told that the donations consisted of 500 fine robes, 500 packages of silk floss, 1,000 pieces of scarf, 1,000 ounces of incense, 1,000 catties of tea, and 1,000 hand towels.14 These gifts were part of the premium paid by the empire to the Buddhist monasteries for the protection offered against the unseen world. Second, the monasteries were havens for the literati. In the writings of many outstanding poets of the T’ang dynasty, we find a constantly repeated theme, a longing to get away from the ills of the world, to seek refuge in the serenity and tranquillity of a Buddhist monastery. These poets, products of the rigorous 11   Fo-tsu t’ung-chi c. 41, Taishō 49. 377c–78a. 12  For description of Mount Wu-t’ai, the monasteries located on the mountain, and the legends concerning Mañjuśrī’s visits to the mountain, see Hui-hsiang, Ku Ch’ing-liang chuan 2c., Taishō 51. 1092c–1100c; Yen-i, Kuang Ch’ing-liang chuan 3 c. Taishō 51. 1101b–27a. 13  E. O. Reischauer, Ennin’s Diary (New York, 1955), pp. 258–59. 14  Ennin (n. 8 above), 3. 70.

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system of Confucian education, had capped their long and arduous years of preparation by winning the highest degrees in the civil service examinations and by being appointed to office in the imperial bureaucracy. As such, these men were the pride of their family and clan, for they were the elite of the empire. One would expect them to bask in the glory of their exalted positions. Such was not the case, however, with a considerable number of such literary figures. These men knew only too well that their positions, status, and prestige so often depended upon the fate of men at the top of the power structure. If the chief ministers whom they supported enjoyed imperial favor, their positions were secure; but this security could be lost immediately if the chief ministers lost out in the ceaseless power struggle at the top. To the literati, officialdom was always fraught with risks and dangers; it is therefore not surprising that so many literary figures expressed a yearning to escape from the temporal struggles and to seek a peaceful haven in Buddhist monasteries. To these men, the Buddhist monastery offered ideal conditions to pass away the time. Removed from the competition and rivalry that entangled official life in the cities, they could roam about the mountains or valleys where the monasteries were usually located, sit beneath whispering pines and listen to the twitterings of birds, wet their feet in the cool rushing waters of the mountain streams, get lost in mountain paths shrouded in clouds, or just relax and drink wine in the secluded monastery courtyard. Listen to the sentiments expressed by one T’ang poet, Wang Wei (699–759): Monk Chung-fan, Monk Chung-fan, You left in autumn to go to Mount Fu-fu, Now it is spring and you have not yet returned. [You must be fascinated by] the bustling scene of falling flowers and singing birds, [You must be enjoying] the solitude, surrounded by brooks and mountains just outside your door and window. Surrounded by hills, who cares anything about the cares of the world?15 Another poem by the same author while staying at a monastery goes as follows: In this quiet valley one hears nothing but the gentle sighing of pines, In the recesses of the mountains there is no crying of birds.

15   T’ang Wang Yu-ch’eng chi 1. 2b (Ssu-pu ts’ung-k’an ed.), and K. Ch’en, The Chinese Transformation of Buddhism (Princeton, n.j., 1973), pp. 180–81.

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When one opens the door, one sees the snow-covered mountains clearly delineated. The singing of the golden brook permeates the forest.16 And still another poem: Not knowing the location of Hsiang-chi monastery, I walk several li over cloud-covered peaks And through forests of ancient trees never treaded by human feet. Whence come the peals of bells in the deep hills? The spring water gurgles as it is blocked by jutting rocks, The sun shines, but it is cool in the shade of the green pines. In the evening, by the side of the quiet pool, I sit in meditation, to drive away the poisonous dragon [of disturbing thoughts].17 Wang Wei had already attained the high post of prime minister in the civil bureaucracy, but he was also a devout Buddhist who called himself Mo-chieh, after the famous Buddhist layman Vimalakīrti (in Chinese, Wei Mo-chieh). After his wife died, he refused to remarry, choosing to lead a celibate life to indicate his devotion to Buddhism. Another T’ang poet who extolled the joys of living in a monastery was Meng Hao-jan (689–740): Where he [the monk] lives is indeed most elegantly secluded, And the people who live there have all attained tranquillity. Dense groves of bamboo line both sides of the road, The clear brook flows by the hut. How free and relaxed is the monk, Having abandoned all the worry and anxiety of the world. The four meditations unite him with suchness, So that he regards everything as illusory.18

16  Ibid., 5. 19b, and Ch’en, p. 181. 17  Ibid., 4. 20a and Ch’en, p. 183. 18   Meng Hao-jan chi 1. 2b (Ssu-pu ts’ung-k’an ed.), and Ch’en, p. 181.

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The best example of a poet seeking haven and tranquillity in the Buddhist monastery is that of Po Chü-i (772–846).19 During his lifetime he held numerous posts in the government—imperial censor, governor, president of the palace library, vice-president of the board of punishments, etc. His official appointments took him to different parts of China, the capitals Ch’ang-an and Loyang, central China, and west China. Everywhere he went, he befriended monks and stayed in monasteries. In 815, Po was involved in a political assassination of the chief minister in Ch’ang-an, and his enemies took advantage of this situation to have him exiled to a minor post in Chiang-chou, Kiangsi. This was a traumatic experience for Po. Whereas formerly he was actively and closely identified with the affairs of state in the capital, in touch with the leading statesmen of the empire, now he was exiled to a region far from the center of political power. Being powerless to exercise political influence, he decided to treat his exile as a sort of semiretirement from the struggles of the political arena.20 To this end, he began to write verses on things he could enjoy the most in that area—mountains, waterfalls, landscapes, luxuriant vegetation, etc. Chiang-chou was admirably suited for such a pastime, for nearby was the mountain Lu-shan, already famous as the site of one of the best-known monasteries in Buddhist history, the Monastery of the Eastern Grove, established in the fourth century by Hui-yüan. So much congeniality and community of interest did Po find here with the monks that he decided to spend whatever time he could spare from his official duties in their company. To this end, he built a simple grass hut near the monastery, where he could live and enjoy the superb scenery of Lu-shan to the utmost. In a letter sent in 817 to his closest friend Yüan Chen, he wrote that after three years in Chiang-chou, his mind was completely at ease, he was enjoying good health, and the food in the area was excellent. He then elaborated in great detail on the pleasures of living in his grass hut next to the monastery. Here the clouds, water, rocks, and falls were more beautiful than in any other part of the mountain. In front of the hut were pine trees and tall bamboos. Whenever he went there, he forgot about the rest of the world, wishing he could remain the rest of his life.21

19  For Po’s biography, see Chiu T’ang-shu 166. 9a–20a; Hsin T’ang-shu 119. 4a–6a; A. Waley, The Life and Times of Po Chü-i (London, 1949); E. Feifel, Monumenta Serica 17 (1958): 255–311. 20  Chiang-chou ssu-ma t’ing chi, in Po-shih ch’ang-ch’ing-chi 26. 1b–3a (Ssu-pu ts’ung-k’ an ed.). 21   Ch’ang-ch’ing-chi 28. 21a–22a.

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Many of the poems Po wrote during this period in Chiang-chou described the joy and contentment he experienced living on Lushan, and revealed some of the lessons he had learned from his Buddhist friends. In one piece he wrote: The guest at Hsün-yang is a layman, His body is like the floating cloud, and his mind is like ashes.22 On another occasion, he plucked out a strand of hair from his head and found that it was white. He immediately wrote to a monk at Lu-shan: Since I do not possess the powers of an immortal, How can I escape this fate of old age and death? There is only the gateway to emancipation, Which can carry one over this decrepit and painful peril. I cover the mirror and gaze at the Monastery of the Eastern Grove, Subduing my mind, I thank the masters of meditation there.23 The last seventeen years of Po’s life were spent in the eastern capital of Loyang; while he still held official positions, these were mainly sinecures with no duties involved. This afforded him all the leisure he wanted, which he spent lolling in laziness, versifying, and visiting monks in the Monastery of the Fragrant Mountain, a setting which became the center of Po’s attention and activities during his declining years in Loyang. First, he contributed funds for an extensive repair of the monastery.24 Second, he put together a library of Buddhist scriptures he had collected from other monasteries and presented it to the monastery.25 Finally, he donated to the monastery all the poems he had written since moving to Loyang.26 He called himself the layman of the Monastery of the Fragrant Mountain, and in his poetry he frequently alluded to his delightful sojourns there. In one, he wrote: “The five sensual pleasures are dispelled, all worries extinguished; I am no longer tethered to anything in the world.”27 22  Ibid., 17. 7a. He likens his mind to ashes in the sense that it is no longer consumed by the fires of passion. See also Ch’en, p. 203. 23  Ibid., 10. 24ab, and Ch’en, p. 203. 24  Ibid., 59. 25b. 25  Ibid., 70. 12b. 26  Ibid. 27  Ibid., 58. 24b.

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Another: When I first arrived in Hsiang-shan, which became my home in old age, It was autumn, and the white moon was full. From now on you are part of my home, Let me ask whether you are aware of this or not.28 This life of leisure was shared in large measure with the monks living in the monastery. He referred to these clerical friends in the following poem: A white haired old man, wearing purple robes, I do not mix with the world but consort with the Tao. Three times I have been assigned to Lo-yang on special duty as an official, Half of my friends are among the monks. One must eventually withdraw from this wealth-conscious world, Long have I yearned for my karmic friends of the incense. After the vegetarian feasts, what can I offer you in return? Only the springs, rocks, and the moist wind in the western pavilion.29 We have referred to only two T’ang poets, Wang Wei and Po Chü-i, but they are representative of the attitudes and activities of those T’ang literary people who were attracted to Buddhism and to life within the Buddhist monasteries. The anthology of T’ang poems contains literally thousands of pieces which could be used to illustrate our theme, but there is no need to belabor the point further. We must proceed to stress another role which the Buddhist monasteries played for the literati. During the T’ang dynasty there was considerable traveling on the part of scholars to the provincial and imperial capitals to take part in the civil service examinations. While these scholars were on the road, they very often spent the night in Buddhist monasteries. And, after their arrival in the capital, they were also often put up in the national monasteries while taking the examinations. Scholars preparing for the examinations also found the Buddhist monasteries, with their quiet and secluded surroundings, the ideal place to concentrate on their studies. So much for the role of the Buddhist monasteries in the literary life of the Chinese. Let us turn to the economic role, where the monasteries were deeply

28  Ibid., 66. 10b, and Ch’en, p. 218. 29  Ibid., 64. 8a, and Ch’en, pp. 218–19.

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involved in such diversified activities as owning land, operating industrial installations, and managing financial transactions. If we are to believe Confucian memorialists, the Buddhist monasteries were among the major landowners of the period.30 They acquired their land through donations, purchases, mortgage foreclosures, appropriations, and grants by the imperial state. And, by arranging connections with officialdom or influential laymen, they were often able to claim tax exemptions for their property. The fact that monastic lands were typically tax-exempt led large landowners to resort to subterfuge to get their own holdings registered as monastery land. One common method was for the landowner to establish his private burial ground and shrine within the limits of a monastery, and thus to claim the monastery as his own. This would be called his merit cloister, for, by donating his land to this merit cloister or monastery, he could claim tax exemption for it. Ostensibly, the land had been donated, but actually the merit cloister was his own creation in the first place, and so the land remained his private possession. In the eyes of the state, however, the land was now monastic land.31 It is difficult to estimate just how much land the monasteries possessed, for the figures concerning the area confiscated during the persecution of Buddhism in 845 are not precise. One memorialist charged that the land in the vicinity of the capital was largely in the hands of monasteries, while another complained that monasteries controlled 70–80 percent of the wealth of the empire.32 Such lands were cultivated by temple slaves, tenant farmers, and novices and probationers in the monastery. Out of income derived from these extensive holdings, the Buddhist monasteries accumulated the capital to establish a number of industrial and commercial enterprises which in turn produced further income to augment the economic wealth of the monastery. Of the industrial installations, two shall be singled out, the water-powered mill and the oil press. The former was one of the most lucrative enterprises sponsored by Buddhist monasteries and by rich families during the T’ang. The mills, used to remove husks or to pulverize grains, were usually powered by water. Herein arose the problem, for the water to operate the mills was also needed by farmers for irrigation. This led to frequent controversies between the mill owners and the peasants in the surrounding areas, resulting in the

30   Chiu T’ang-shu 118. 6a; T’ang-hui-yao 48. 12b. 31  For these merit cloisters, see Ch’en, pp. 140–42. 32  For these memorials, see the citations in n. 30.

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government’s restricting the use of water by the mills only to certain months during the year.33 The monastery-owned mills were usually operated by lay families called miller families, whose duty was to provide monks in the monastery with the flour they needed. The grains from which the flour was produced were obtained by the monastery through donations, rentals from monastic land, or interest from loans. Sometimes, the flour made by the miller exceeded the amount needed by the monks for food, in which case the flour would be sold by the monastery for a profit. Besides milling for the monastery, the miller could also carry on private business during his spare time, but he was obligated to pay a portion of his private income to the monastery for the use of the mill. For the lay miller as well as the monastery, the water-powered mill was therefore a profitable industrial enterprise.34 The same may be said for the oil presses operated by the monasteries. Because so much oil was needed for the countless lamps in the monastery and for cooking, it was an indispensable item; to produce it, the monastery established oil presses which were also operated by lay families. The arrangements between the lay oil pressers and the monastery were similar to those in the case of the millers. Hence we often read in the financial reports of the monasteries, “Hempseed, two shih eight tou, delivered to the oil pressers to be pressed into oil”; “Hempseed, four shih three tou, delivered to the oil presser to be pressed into oil.”35 As for the commercial enterprises operated by the monasteries, probably the best known is the Inexhaustible Treasury (wu-chin-tsang). Previously we have mentioned the vast areas of monastic land from which the monasteries derived considerable income. Rich families who were devout followers of Buddhism, wishing to accumulate meritorious karma to ensure a better rebirth in the future, would make outright gifts to the monastery. The donations made to the monastery for consumption by the monks would sometimes exceed the amount needed by them, resulting in a surplus of goods. These three items 33   T’ang-liu-tien 7. 9b. See also Pelliot 2507, entitled T’ang-tai Shui-pu-shih. This is a manuscript recovered in Tun-huang by the French Sinologist Paul Pelliot and now kept in the Bibliothèque nationale in Paris. 34  For a more extended discussion of these water-powered mills, see Ch’en, pp. 151–56. A selected list of important articles by Japanese and Chinese scholars dealing with these mills may be found in K. Ch’en, Buddhism in China (Princeton, n.j., 1964), pp. 524–25. 35  Examples of such reports may be found in such works as Naba Toshisada, “Chūban Tōjidai ni okeru Tonkō chihō bukkyō jiin no tengai keiei ni tsuite,” Tōa keizai ronsō 1 (1941): 552– 65; J. Gernet, Les aspects économiques du Bouddhisme (Saigon, 1956), pls. 3–5.

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(income, gifts, and donations) constituted the bulk of the capital owned by the Inexhaustible Treasury in the monasteries. Why the term “inexhaustible”? Because there was a continuous flow of wealth into the treasury that could be used indefinitely and generate interest thereby. With the capital that it held the treasury could make loans to borrowers, charging interest at the prevailing T’ang rates, about 4–5 percent per month.36 Very often the borrowers would be peasants living nearby the monastery who needed grains for seedlings in the spring, and who promised to repay the amount with interest in the fall. On occasion, the treasury would sell some of the goods, the proceeds to be used for promoting the dharma. Of these Inexhaustible Treasuries, the most famous was one established in the Hua-tu Monastery in Ch’ang-an, concerning which some fairly detailed descriptions exist. It enjoyed a history of well over a century, during which the money, silk, and embroidery stored in the treasury were, we are told, beyond calculation. People from as far away as present-day Ssu-ch’uan, Kansu, and Hopei went to the treasury to borrow; and regardless of the amount borrowed or the interest charged, nothing was committed to writing. The earnings of the treasury were divided into three portions: one was used for repairs to the monasteries throughout the empire; one, for the alleviation of the sufferings of the poor; and one, for offerings to the Buddha. We are told also that the faithful vied with one another in making their donations, bringing their goods in cartloads, and departing without leaving their names.37 Besides the Inexhaustible Treasuries, some monasteries and individual monks also indulged in financial transactions. In documents recovered from Tun-huang, numerous records exist of such transactions. Loans were usually in the form of grains, cloth, silk, and, in rare cases, money; contracts covering such loans were drawn up between the two parties. In one contract, we read that a certain Mr. Ts’ao, in need of some grains for seedlings, borrowed about two shih of beans from monk Hai-ch’ing of the Ling-t’u Monastery on the first day of the third month, with a promise to pay on the thirteenth day of the eighth month. If he does not pay by that time, the amount payable shall be doubled. Or, the creditor may also seize his belongings to pay for the value of the beans.38

36   T’ang-liu-tien 6. 13b; T’ang-hui-yao 88. 21a. 37  Wei Shu, Liang-ching hsin-chi 2. 15ab (Yüeh-ya-fang ts’ung-shu ed.). See also T’ai-p’ing kuang-chi 493. 4047–48 (Peking, 1959). 38  Stein 1475. This is also a Tun-huang manuscript recovered by Aurel Stein and now kept in the British Museum.

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While this contract contained no indication of the interest charged, only the penalty for default, interest was unquestionably charged. Some contracts found in Tun-huang contained the phrase, “The interest shall be in accordance with rates prevalent in the area,”39 while in other documents the rate of interest is clearly indicated. For instance, one person borrowed two shih of millet in the spring, returned three shih in the autumn.40 Another borrowed seven shih of wheat in the spring, repaid ten and a half shih in the autumn.41 In these instances, the interest rate was a uniform 50 percent for half a year, a rate far beyond what was allowed under T’ang regulations (i.e., 4–5 percent a month). How extensive were such commercial loans carried out by the monasteries? Fortunately, we have some concrete data for one monastery. It was the custom for accountants in monasteries to present financial reports at the end of each year to the entire congregation of monks in a monastery. The report for the Ching-t’u Monastery in Tun-huang for 924 has been preserved; from this document we learn that during that year, 366.9 shih of grains were received by the monastery. Of this amount, revenue from temple lands constituted 44.4 shih or 12 percent; interest income was 200 shih or 55 percent of the total; while donations amounted to 120 shih or 33 percent. For that one year, interest from loans represented more than half the income of the monastery.42 Loans in money were rather rare, although instances have been found. In one case, the individual borrowed 1,000 cash, promising to pay an interest of 200 cash each month, an astronomical rate of 240 percent per annum.43 One may conclude from this that it was far more expensive to borrow money than goods from the monastery. The foregoing discussion has provided us with some idea of the extensive economic activities carried out by Buddhist monasteries in T’ang China. These economic activities, and the wealth they earned for the monasteries, were one of the chief factors behind the widespread suppression of Buddhism ordered by Emperor Wu in 845.44 That the motives were in large measure economic and not religious may be noted in the nature of the suppression. Not all Buddhist monasteries were destroyed; in each of the two capitals four Buddhist monasteries were permitted, while in each of the major prefectures one monastery 39  Pelliot 3565; Stein 4445. 40  Pelliot 3959. 41  Ibid. 42  Pelliot 2049. 43  Stein 5867. See also Gernet (n. 35 above), pp. 179–80. 44  K. Ch’en, “Economic Background of the Hui-ch’ang Persecution,” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 19 (1956): 67–105.

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was permitted. Those images of the Buddha made of clay, wood, or stone were not to be destroyed, presumably because they possessed no economic value. However, ritual utensils and images made of bronze were to be converted into coins; images of iron were to be converted into farming implements; while images made of gold, silver, and jade were to be confiscated and turned over to the bureau of revenue. All monastic lands were to be appropriated by the government.45 All this indicates that the state was primarily interested in confiscating the enormous wealth held by Buddhist monasteries. Let us turn next to the monastery’s role as a center of religious education for the masses of Chinese. Previously, we have noted the widespread popularity of Buddhism among all classes of Chinese society. Such popularity stemmed in large measure from the program of religious education that the monasteries carried out to reach the great masses of people. For the educated laity, the problem of transmitting Buddhist teachings was not too difficult. Such people could read the sutras themselves, or they could attend sessions in the monasteries where masters of the law could preach on their favorite scriptures. Occasionally, there would be debates between these masters on intricate points of dharma; for those laymen who were familiar with the controversial issues, such debates could be very informative. Of greater concern to the monasteries was the problem of reaching the large masses of simple uneducated people living in the vicinity of the monasteries. For these masses, the exposition and exegesis of a sutra would not be suitable; the audience would not have the understanding or the patience to sit through such formal presentations. What was needed were some new approaches which would combine entertainment with presentation of the rudiments of the religion. Through the centuries, the monasteries evolved a number of novel methods, and by the time of the T’ang dynasty these methods were refined and utilized on an extensive scale. First was the creation of a new type of preacher whom we shall call by the general term popular lecturer. He might remain in a monastery, or he might travel from place to place. For the popular lecturer, four prerequisites were valued: voice, eloquence, talent, and profundity. In other words, he must not only be learned in the law, but he must also possess the voice and eloquence to be a sort of spellbinder, who could amuse the audience and keep them awake with all kinds of stories, anecdotes, and parables. Equipped with clever tongue and smooth language, these popular lecturers were very successful in getting across the message of the Buddha through amusing and entertaining stories.46

45   Chiu T’ang shu 18A. 23b. 46   Kao-seng-chuan 13, Taishō 50. 417c.

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We are fortunate to have some contemporary accounts of one of the most famous popular lecturers at work, Wen-hsü, who lived during the early ninth century. He is described as an outstanding individual, a monk of great virtue, proficient in chanting the sutras, and possessing a soft pleasant voice which moved people. Ignorant men and fascinated women delighted in listening to him; they filled the monasteries whenever he spoke.47 However, a Confucian critic charged that he discussed nothing but base and vulgar subjects, and that true followers of the Buddha all ridiculed him.48 This criticism provides good insight into the nature of the audiences that attended the popular lectures. They consisted mainly of the unlettered and rustic masses, who were delighted in having the message of the Buddha embellished in the earthy and robust vernacular so well understood by them. These popular lectures were enlivened by a very important literary innovation created by monks in the T’ang dynasty, the pien-wen (or text of marvellous events). A pien-wen is a modified version of a Buddhist sutra consisting of a mixture of prose and poetry. The monks took a short episode in a sutra and expanded it to tremendous lengths by adding all kinds of stories of marvellous events. By so doing, they converted the sutra into an entertaining vehicle for spreading the Buddha’s message. As one example of such expansion, a passage of fourteen characters in the Vimalakīrti was increased to 630 characters in prose and sixty-five lines of poetry, each line consisting of seven characters. Probably the best known of these pien-wen is the Mu-lien pien-wen, which recounts the adventures of the monk Mu-lien in searching for his mother, who was reborn in the deepest Buddhist hell because of her deceit and avariciousness. We can well visualize the gripping interest with which the audience would follow a master storyteller describing Mu-lien rescuing his mother from hell only to have her reborn as a hungry ghost, then as a black dog, and finally as a deity in heaven.49 The second method by which the monasteries reached the masses was via the numerous festivals throughout the calendar year. Such celebrations were 47  Tuan Ch’eng-shih, Yu-yang tsa-tsu hsü-chi 5. 11a (Hsüeh-tsin t’ao-yüan ed.); Tuan An-chieh, Yüeh-fu tsa-lu Wen-hsü t’iao, Ts’ung-shu chi-ch’eng ed., 1659:38; Ennin (n. 8 above), 3.84. 48  Chao Lin, Yin-hua-lu c. 4, Ts’ung-shu chi-ch’eng ed., 2831:25. 49  Many different versions of this pien-wen have been found in Tun-huang. I have personally looked over Pelliot 2193, 2319, 3107, 3485, and 4988; Stein 2614 and 3704. Stein 2614 is published in Taishō 85. 1307a–14a. Numerous manuscripts are also in the Peking Metropolitan Library; see Ch’en Yüan, Tun-huang chieh-yü-lu (Peking, 1931), pp. 541 ff. For a discussion of this pien-wen, see Ch’en, Transformation, pp. 24–28. There is an English résumé in A. Waley, Ballads and Stories from Tunhuang (London, 1960), pp. 216–35.

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the expression of deep religious fervor by the Chinese; the intensity of this fervor was a good indication of the degree of acceptance of the religion by the Chinese as a whole. In celebrating the festivals collectively, the Chinese of the T’ang dynasty were drawn together in unity through a common faith engendered by the Mahayana emphasis on compassion and universal salvation. The first popular festival in the Buddhist calendar was the lantern festival, celebrated on the fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth days of the first month of the year.50 Ordinarily, the gates connecting the different wards in the capital of Ch’ang-an were closed during the night, thus restricting travel from one ward to the other, but during the festival the gates remained open all night and all restrictions were suspended.51 This permitted people to wander from monastery to monastery, viewing the gorgeous display of lights in each one. The Japanese monk Ennin described a spoon and bamboo lamp which he witnessed in Yangchou. It was about seven or eight feet tall, with a thousand metal or clay spoons tied to the ends of bamboo branches. Each spoon was filled with oil and when lighted gave the effect of a gorgeous Christmas tree.52 Next on the calendar was the celebration of the Buddha’s birthday—the eighth day of the fourth month—featured mainly by the bathing and parading of the Buddha images.53 During some of the birthday celebrations over the years there took place another ceremony, that of welcoming and reverencing the relics of the Buddha. When this happened, the emotional reaction of the Chinese was indeed astounding. On the pretext that they were making offerings to the relics, the Chinese would abandon their occupations and exhaust their fortunes, or they would burn their heads and cauterize their arms. In the celebration of 873, a soldier cut off his left arm, and holding it in his hand he reverenced the relic each time he took a step, his blood sprinkling the ground all the while.54 The third important festival was All Souls’ Feast, held on the fifteenth day of the seventh month to commemorate the rescue by Mu-lien of his mother from hell. It was believed that offerings made to the Buddhist monks on this 50   T’ang-hui-yao 49. 8b–9a: “Every year in accordance with established precedence, the markets shall be opened and the lanterns lit on the evenings of the fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth days of the first month.” 51   T’ang-lü su-i 26. 13a. 52  Reischauer (n. 13 above), p. 71. 53   Wei-shu 114. 10a; Lo-yang ch’ieh-lan-chi c. 3, Taishō 51. 1010b; Meng Yüan-lao, Tung-ching meng-hua-lu 8. la (Hsüeh-chin t’ao-yüan ed.); Shih-shih yao-lan, Taishō 54. 288c. 54  Ennin gave a detailed account of the reception of a tooth relic in Ch’ang-an in 841 (see Ennin [n. 8 above], 3. 84). For the 873 celebration welcoming the finger bone relic in Ch’ang-an, see Chiu T’ang-shu 19. 21a; Ch’en, Buddhism in China (n. 34 above), pp. 280–82.

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festival would result in meritorious rebirths for all ancestors extending seven generations back. Because of this identification with the important Confucian virtue of filial piety, the festival became most popular and widespread during the T’ang era.55 On these festival days, when the monastery grounds would be filled with visitors and spectators, the monastery would present different kinds of programs that offered entertainment as well as religious instruction. For instance, there would be dramatic performances based on themes taken from the scriptures or from episodes during the previous lives of the Buddha. There would be storytelling by talented raconteurs and performances of magic feats by monks proficient in such arts.56 Such feats undoubtedly assisted in attracting attention and spreading the Buddha’s message; the Buddha himself once remarked that a magical feat quickly captures the mind of worldlings. Yet another method of propagating the religion was through vegetarian feasts arranged by the monasteries throughout the year. The occasions for such feasts might be the birthday of the Buddha or the reigning emperor, the date of nirvana, memorial days for deceased emperors or patriarchs, commemoration of the completion of an image or a monastery, expression of gratitude for some good fortune, boon, or benefit.57 To such feasts were invited monks and laity on a basis of equality. The donors of such feasts might be members of the imperial family, some rich laymen, or the monks and monasteries themselves. Attendance varied from a small company to the tens of thousands.58 Finally, the monasteries sought to popularize Buddhism through organizing societies or clubs for laymen under the leadership of monks. Such societies fulfilled a variety of purposes—constructing images of Buddhist deities, copying or reciting sutras, preparing for vegetarian feasts, or performing pious deeds for the accumulation of merits. They varied in size, from a few to over 1,000 55  The scriptural basis for the celebration of the All Soul’s Feast is the Yü-lan-p’en ching, translated by Dharmaraksha during the Western Chin dynasty (265–316) and published in Taishō 16. 779a–779c. Throughout his diary, Ennin describes the observance of this festival in the different places he visited (see Reischauer, pp. 268–69, 344). Imperial participation in this festival for the year 768 may be found in Fo-tsu t’ung-chi 41, Taishō 49. 378c; Chiu T’ang-shu 118. 6b. 56   Lo-yang ch’ieh-lan-chi, Taishō 51. 1003b. 57  Ch’en, Transformation, pp. 276–78. 58   Hsü Kao-seng-chuan 19, Taishō 50. 581b, a feast for 10,000 people; Ts’e-fu yüan-kuei 52. 5a, a feast for 10,000 people in the Tz’u-en Monastery staged by Emperor Tai-tsung in 773; Fo-tsu t’ung-chi 39, Taishō 49. 367a, feast for 5,000 people in Tz’u-en Monastery staged by Emperor Kao-tsung in 656; ibid., 44, Taishō 49. 404b, feast for 30,000 people staged by Emperor Chen-tsung in P’u-hsien Monastery on Mount Omei in 1011.

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members, depending mainly on the purpose for which they were organized.59 If the purpose was to carve an image of the Buddha out of the walls of caves, then the number tended to be fairly large. We have on record a Society for the Recitation of the Hua-yen (Avataṁsaka [Garlands of flowers]) Sutra, which claimed to have a membership of 100,000 and which met quarterly in separate places, with each member reciting one chapter of the Hua-yen Sutra.60 During the T’ang dynasty, such societies became rather common. On certain occasions during the year, such as during the popular lectures or the vegetarian feasts, the members of societies would offer their services to the monasteries. After the event, the monasteries would usually reward the members with a feast in which there would be much merrymaking, eating, and drinking.61 It is interesting to note here that, while Buddhism prohibited the monastic community from drinking intoxicating liquor, the Chinese Buddhist monastery made no attempt to discourage devout laymen in these societies from drinking liquor. Numerous documents have been recovered in Tun-huang concerning these societies, most of which were notices announcing meetings of the societies. The following is a typical example: “It is requested that all members reading this circular will gather at the entrance of the Tuan-yen Monastery at 6:00 a.m. on the fourth day of the coming month for a vegetarian feast. The last two to arrive will be fined one beaker of wine; while those who are absent will be fined half a flask of wine. This circular is to be circulated rapidly among the members, and no one is permitted to hinder its circulation.”62 These societies afforded, therefore, the lay people in the vicinity of a monastery opportunity to participate in the religious program of the monastery. Through such activities as raising funds, assisting the popular lectures, preparing vegetarian feasts, or copying the sutras, they performed constructive deeds for the development of the monastery. In turn, the society members gained status in the community as well as spiritual instruction and benefit from the clerical community. Finally, there is the role of the monastery as a charitable institution. In a religion emphasizing the doctrine of karma, it would not be strange if it were to take little interest in the sick, the needy, and the unfortunate of society. For 59  For a more extended discussion of these societies, see Ch’en, Transformation, pp. 281–94. 60  For Po Chü-i’s account of the organization and activities of this organization, see Po-shih ch’ang-ch’ing-chi 59. 7a–8b. 61  See the following Tun-huang manuscripts, Pelliot 2032 and 2049, for notices about the monasteries providing wine for society members. 62  Pelliot 3372.

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such people, after all, are mainly reaping the rewards of their past karma, and one can do little to help them. However, that same religion in its Mahayana aspect also stresses compassion, altruism, and the unity of all life. In line with this emphasis on compassion, the Buddhist monastery in T’ang China carried out a program of charitable activities on behalf of the unfortunate members of society. One of the instruments to achieve this was the field of compassion. In India this was no more than an abstract concept, but in China, with the Chinese propensity for rendering the abstract into the concrete, there were established actual fields of compassion connected with the monasteries, which yielded income used for altruistic purposes.63 Among the charitable institutions established by Buddhist monasteries, we might mention hospitals and dispensaries to care for the sick, the decrepit, and the needy. We have a decree issued by authorities calling upon hospitals to gather beggars and feed them.64 Orphanages, feeding stations for the hungry, and havens for the aged were established, and burial services were provided for those who were indigent and without relatives.65 These charitable activities were primarily for the benefit of those less fortunate in life. It must be added that monasteries also carried out projects for the public weal, such as building roads and bridges, deepening river channels to facilitate navigation,66 digging wells and planting trees on roadsides, or maintaining inns and comfort stations for the welfare of pilgrims traveling to sacred spots. To honor the public-spirited monks who promoted such activities, a special section entitled “Section on Monks who Increase Merits” was set aside in the collections of biographies.67 It appears that the imperial government was cognizant of the valuable contributions made by these fields of compassion. In 845, when Buddhism was persecuted, a fear arose among the officials that confiscation of monastic lands would jeopardize the social welfare program supported by the fields of compassion. The throne hastily approved a proposal advanced by one of the chief ministers calling for a continuation of such fields of compassion, with the proviso that they be administered by venerable trustworthy old men.68 63   T’ang-hui-yao 49. 9a–10a; Chiu T’ang-shu 18A. 15b. 64   T’ang-hui-yao 49. 9b; Ch’üan T’ang-wen 704. 3b–4a. 65   Tang-hui-yao 49. 9b. 66  For Po Chü-i’s account of the deepening of the I River near Loyang, see Ch’ang-ch’ing-chi 71. 4a. 67   Hsü Kao-seng-chuan c. 29, Taishō 50. 691b–700c; Sung Kao-seng-chuan c. 27–28, Taishō 50. 878b–88c. 68   T’ang-hui-yao 49. 10a; Chiu T’ang-shu 18A. 15b.

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This rapid survey has, we hope, provided a glimpse of the varied roles carried out by Buddhist monasteries in T’ang China. They touched almost every group of Chinese society in one way or another. For the dynasty and imperial family, the monastery with its clerical community provided the avenue to seek for protective influences bestowed by forces in the unseen world. For the literati, the monastery afforded a haven of retreat and tranquillity in which they could contemplate the ills of the world. For the rich families, the monastery was a means to escape the onerous tax burden on the land. For the masses of people, the monastery offered financial assistance when needed, entertainment during the festivals to lighten their toils, social companionship in the various clubs, and a refuge in case of illness, poverty, or infirmity. To every Chinese, high or low, it offered the spiritual message of Buddhism, that all life is one, that our destinies are all interrelated and intertwined, that we live according to the fruits of our acts, and that, if we are devout enough, we shall eventually be reborn in the Western Paradise.

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Buddhism and Education in T’ang Times Erik Zürcher

The Buddhist Ideal of Moral Training

In the Confucian perspective, education has always meant much more than purely intellectual training and the transfer of certain skills. True education, as defined by Confucian thinkers, cannot be separated from the moral improvement of the individual as a social being; from the earliest times, the terms hsüeh “study” and chiao “teaching” always have had strong ethical implications. They refer to a total process of acquisition and interiorization of the norms of “the right way of life,” to the study and memorization of texts that exemplify those norms, and, at the higher levels of “study,” to the creation of an elite whose members—either as local leaders or as administrators—will be qualified to further their application. The nearest Western approximation would be the French formation, which, unfortunately, also is untranslatable. I shall not go further into this because Confucian education is not my theme. It is, however, important to note that the Confucian concept of education (in the broad sense of the word) was not exclusively directed toward the formation and selection of an administrative elite. From the beginning that elitist aim was combined with the much more comprehensive ideal of moral training and ideological manipulation of the mass of the people. Thus, Confucianism naturally tended and overtly claimed to monopolize “education” at all levels, and this obviously had important consequences for the extent to which Buddhism was able to realize its own educational ideals and potentialities. At first sight, the Buddhist claims in this field were as far-reaching as the Confucian ones, in spite of its different orientation. Buddhism not only brought a religious message but also implied a “Buddhist way of life.” However, a basic difference lies in the fact that in Buddhism such a basic reorientation of life was, first and foremost, applied to the nuclear group within the system: the saṅgha, the community of monks and nuns, novices and postulants, those “who have left the household” (ch’u-chia) and thereby have placed themselves outside the world of temporal social relations and obligations. By doing so, Source: “Buddhism and Education in T’ang Times,” in William Theodore de Bary and John Chaffee (eds.), Neo-Confucian Education: The Formative Stage, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989, 19–56. © University of California Press.

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they chose another way of life, subject to a very detailed internal code of behavior, the vinaya (lü). The education received within the saṅgha was extensive and exacting; ideally, it implied years of hard learning, total dedication, and strenuous effort. But, here again, what we would call “education” is part of a total formation: religious study under a clerical teacher; the acquisition of the countless rules of conduct to be observed toward one’s masters, one’s fellow monks, other religious persons (such as novices or nuns), and the laity; training in ritual, liturgy, and the techniques of meditation. And all this had a moral dimension, for it had to be combined with a constant struggle to free oneself from sin, desire, and attachment. “Education”—in the narrow sense of literacy, scriptural studies, and intellectual training—merely is one component in this complex. Apart from what took place within the saṅgha, the activities of the Order vis-à-vis the laity also had an educational dimension. The pious layman always has played a double role, as both donor and receiver. As a donor, he creates the material conditions for the existence of the saṅgha and thereby forms the support of spiritual life; in return he is entitled to receive religious doctrinal instruction, ritual expertise, and karmic retribution for his good works. The laity may also organize saṅgha activities serving a communal cause, such as rituals to pray for rain or the foundation of temples for the salvation of soldiers who died on the battlefield. The social stratification of such lay-sponsored activities reaches from grass-roots level to nationwide imperial patronage, but in all cases the saṅgha’s response—its part of the bargain—is, in principle, threefold: religious instruction, moral guidance, and the production of “good luck.” Religious instruction directed toward the laity basically consisted of preaching. In medieval times the doctrine was no doubt already spread in writing (scriptures and popular treatises), but this was limited by the low level of literacy and, before the generalization of printing that took place only under the Sung, the rarity and high price of handwritten texts. Preaching took place at all levels, from doctrinal expositions and debates at the court to the popular explication of texts for the common people. Icons and wall paintings in temples no doubt also had a didactic purpose, as they acquainted the public with the enormous Buddhist repertory of themes and forms and thereby enriched their world of religious imagination. Becoming a Buddhist layman was more than a simple act of faith, in which the believer “takes refuge in the Buddha, the Doctrine and the Order.” The practicant solemnly promised to observe “for the rest of his/her lifetime” the Five Rules (abstaining from killing, stealing, illicit sex, lying, and intoxicating drinks). The layman was, moreover, expected to observe certain religious

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obligations (notably periodic fasting) and to perform good works.1 Becoming a lay believer was a solemn ceremony; since late T’ang times it was even confirmed by a formal certificate signed by the officiating priest. However, these rules and obligations were rather general and could therefore easily be integrated in the normal patterns of worldly life. In fact, the remarkable success with which Buddhism was able to find its place in so many completely different cultures was largely based on the summary nature of its rules for the laity: its demands were, on the one hand, so well-defined and recognizable that they could form the base of a certain group solidarity and a sense of relation with the saṅgha and, on the other hand, so general that they could function in a traditionally non-Buddhist framework. But in China, as in other Mahāyāna countries, this simple dichotomous picture of a nuclear saṅgha surrounded by a supportive and extraneous laity became less clear-cut. Mahāyāna Buddhism tended toward blurring the division between clergy and laity, and in China this tendency toward “upgrading” the layman, the “Boddhisattva who stays in the family” (tsai chia p’u-sa) was reinforced by environmental factors. On the part of the saṅgha, it led to the formation of an important intermediate category of “postulants” whose position was halfway between the religious and mundane spheres of life; later I shall return to this. On the part of the laity, it led to a more detailed formulation of its “Buddhist way of life.” This is most clearly exemplified by the “Boddhisattva vows” (p’u-sa chieh), a practice that became popular during the fifth century and that until modern times has remained a basic element in Chinese Buddhism. The practice is based on a sūtra of doubtful authenticity, the translation of which is wrongly attributed to Kumārajīva.2 The text lists eight “grave” and 1  A detailed description of the entrance ceremonial for the lay believers is found in TaishōTripitaka (hereafter T) 1488, Yu-p’o-sai chieh ching (trans. by Dharmakṣema, early fifth century), chüan 3, section 14 (shou chieh p’in), pp. 1047a–1050b. T refers, as in all following notes, to the Buddhist Canon of the Taishō Era, Taishō shinshū daizōkyō, edited under the direction of Takakusu Junjirō, Watanabe Kaigyoku. and Ono Gemyō in 100 vols. (Tokyo: Taishō issaikyō kankōkai, 1924–1935). The flexibility of the system appears from the fact that a partial acceptance of the Vows also was possible, even down to only one Vow, without losing upāsaka status (ibid. p. 1049a). On the other hand, however, the bestowal of a formal certificate proving the acceptance of the vows (both the Five Vows and those of the Bodhisattva, for which see below) lends the ceremonial an official character. Many of such certificates have been found at Tun-huang (e.g., S 330, 347, 532, 2851, 4482, 4844, 4915). 2  T 1484 Fan-wang ching, very popular in China into modern times. The terminology certainly is not Kumārajīva’s; the text is not mentioned by Seng-yu in his Ch’u san tsang chi chi (T 2145)

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forty-eight “light” commandments and prohibitions, some of which are clearly designed for the clergy, whereas others are directed to the laity. But in actual practice the vows are accepted by laymen and clergy alike.3 The vows subject the practicant to a whole series of obligations that go much farther than the original Five Rules: he or she shall seek instruction in the scriptures; take care of the sick; observe exemplary filial piety toward one’s parents; strive to convert one’s relatives; liberate animals held in captivity; abstain from obtaining requital even in case of murder of one’s relatives; and abstain from meat and from strong-smelling vegetables like garlic and onions. The practicant is not allowed to carry arms, to possess objects used to catch animals, or to associate with soldiers. He vows not to keep a brothel, to interpret dreams, to utter spells, or to make a living as a slave-trader, a seller of animals (for slaughter), or an undertaker. All this is symptomatic of the ongoing tendency toward formulating a more detailed and specific “Buddhist way of life” for the laity, based on the Bodhisattva ideal. Finally, at the grass-roots level Buddhism no doubt has played a comparable role by propagating the collective performance of “good works,” a phenomenon mainly known to us from the many Tun-huang documents pertaining to local clubs and societies. Much has been written about these organizations and their roots in pre-Buddhist Chinese society; however, such fraternities and sororities were hybrid bodies, largely directed toward worldly ends but undoubtedly inspired by Buddhism. At this level, Buddhism has largely contributed to an ongoing process that in later imperial times resulted in the secularized—or rather Confucianized—“community contracts” (hsiang-yüeh) and the charitable and cooperative institutions of lineages. It appears that the Buddhist contribution lies in reinforcing charity: the abandonment of worldly possessions and the ideal of “salvation of all beings” as a means to accumulate karmic merit.

of a.d. 515, and in the early Sui catalog Chung-ching mu-lu, compiled by Fa-ching and others and completed in 594, it is classed among the “dubious texts” (T 2146, 5:140a). On the other hand, the first references to the Bodhisattva vows being accepted by both monks and laics date from the second half of the fifth century, culminating in the 520s when some forty-eight thousand persons followed the Liang emperor Wu’s example and accepted these vows. 3  See Hōbōgirin, vol. II. pp. 142–146, S. v. Bosatsukai. For a translation of the rules and a description of the ritual as it was practiced at Foochow in the late nineteenth century, see J. J. M. de Groot, Le Code du Mahāyāna en Chine (Amsterdam: Joh. Müller, 1893). Also see Holmes Welch, The Practice of Chinese Buddhism, 1900–1950 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1967), pp. 362–364.

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“Education” More Strictly Defined

What has been said so far may have made clear that the subject, if taken in its larger sense of “Buddhist religious instruction and moral training,” is a mer à boire that would virtually embrace the whole complex of lay Buddhism and a considerable part of training within the saṅgha. Because the subject would become unmanageable with such an approach, a rigorous restriction will be necessary. In spite of the larger context, to which I have tried to do justice in the previous section, in this section the theme will therefore be reduced to its most concrete content: education is the systematic transfer of specific skills such as literacy; and, as a result of this transfer, a special group forms whose possession of those skills distinguishes it from the rest of the community. I shall further distinguish between (1) the training of the monk within the saṅgha—a system of education that, at least ideally, makes him a member of an educated elite of a special type—and (2) the educational role of the saṅgha vis-à-vis the laity. I must emphasize the facts that the available information largely belongs to the first aspect and that much less is known about external educational activities of the saṅgha. This in itself is a remarkable fact, the explanation of which must be sought in the status of the saṅgha in medieval China. The Status of the Saṅgha The period roughly between ad 500 and 850 no doubt constitutes the “Buddhist age” in Chinese history. However, this apogee of Buddhism never led to anything even remotely resembling a “Buddhist state.” In all matters related to state and ideology, Buddhism remained marginal. The official political theology was maintained as the legitimation of dynastic rule: the complex of the mandate of heaven and the state cult associated with it hardly absorbed any Buddhist elements. Indian cosmology was not absorbed but in a remarkable way coexisted with the traditional Chinese. The state maintained its exclusive claim as the sole source of political and social order: not the priest but the civil administrator was the focus of authority and prestige. “Higher culture” was still largely the domain of the secular elite—the same elite from which the state recruited its officials and courtiers. The position of the saṅgha in T’ang China therefore basically differed from that of the clergy in medieval Western Europe. In the West, the clergy by definition was the carrier of spiritual authority and literacy; the church virtually monopolized education, and the feudal aristocracy largely left the cultural, educational, and administrative sectors for the church to manage. In China the situation was almost the reverse; the saṅgha was overshadowed by the existence of an established secular elite that

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was the focus of power, status, higher education, and literary culture. Even in its heyday the saṅgha was never in a position to challenge its monopoly; at best the clergy could expand in complete dependency on that elite and within the limits set by the authorities. Individual devotion, and even imperial patronage, did not change that basic configuration of power. However, the saṅgha by the beginning of the T’ang had already developed into a large and diversified group of literate and sometimes highly cultivated specialists. Within Chinese culture a body of a completely new type had come into being: the saṅgha had become a secondary elite. The Saṅgha as a Secondary Elite The formation of that clerical top level is reasonably well documented, mainly on the basis of about one thousand major biographies of Chinese “eminent monks” in the various Kao-seng chuan.4 The process started in the late third century.5 In the course of the fourth century two interdependent phenomena occurred: monks of high-class (or at least literati background) emerged, and Buddhism penetrated the elite, in both the North and the South. However, during the fourth and the fifth century only a handful of monks of high-class origin were active. Between 250 and 400 biographical sources mention only ten cases of high-class background: the elite within the clergy became visible and very active, but it still was very small. In the course of the fifth century, high-class recruitment (sixteen cases) increased but not dramatically. The spectacular upward shift took place in the sixth century (fifty-three cases, with thirty-eight in the peak period ad 525–575) in a time of imperial patronage, both in the Lower Yangtze area (Liang) and in the North (Toba Wei). This 4  The data are mainly based on the three large collections of monks’ biographies: (a) T 2059 Kao-seng chuan, 14 chüan, by Hui-chiao (497–554), completed ca. 530, containing 257 major and 243 subordinate biographies, from the earliest times until ca. 520; (b) T 2060 Hsü Kaoseng chuan, 30 chüan, by Tao-hsüan, (596–667), completed ca. 650, containing 331 major and 160 subordinate biographies, from the early sixth century until ca. 645; (c) T 2061 Sung Kaoseng chuan, 30 chüan, by Tsan-ning (919–1001) and others, completed in 988, containing 533 major and 130 subordinate biographies from early T’ang to early Sung. The Kao-seng chuan mainly falls outside the scope of this paper; I have, moreover, for obvious reasons paid no attention to the biographies of non-Chinese missionaries. The data presented here are based upon a total of about one thousand biographies—at first sight an impressive corpus of materials. However, as I have pointed out elsewhere, (Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society (1982): 161–176, esp. 9, 164–165), one must always be conscious of its limitations: it shows a propagandistic picture of the highest clerical elite and only occasionally contains information on the mass of the saṅgha. 5  Cf. E. Zürcher, The Buddhist Conquest of China (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1959), Vol. 1, pp. 6–9.

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sudden outburst of high-class recruitment no doubt also indicates a change of mentality: the saṅgha became “respectable”; its status rose to a level at which even very prominent families would allow their children to join the Order and become members of what had grown into a secondary elite of a very special character. I shall later discuss the new and innovative nature of the saṅgha; before doing so, I will present more data about this remarkable “upgrading” of the saṅgha shortly before and under the Sui. In a number of cases the texts just mention that a certain monk came from a high-class family, such as Yen-tsung (556–610), whose family “for generations had belonged to the gentry, and was known as the no. 1 lineage (of the region),”6 or T’an-tsang (566–635) who came from a “family that had been prominent from generation to generation.”7 In many cases the texts indicate a background of Confucian scholarship. Some monks were “students” (shu-sheng) at prefectural or commandery level;8 of Ching-hsüan (568–611) it is said more explicitly that he became a student at the commandery school at the age of six and there studied the Classics for three years,9 which clearly refers to elementary training at an early age. Another monk, Hsüan-ching (died 606), also from a family of literati, at the age of fifteen had been selected as a hsiu-ts’ai,10 and Hui-pin (573–645) had been made an assistant teacher at the prefectural school at the age of eighteen, before he joined the Order.11 The scholarly background of several monks of this generation is mentioned, as in the case of Hui-k’uan (583– 653) whose father was the “Erudite of the Five Classics” Yang Wei.12 But even more striking is the number of monks who came from families of high official status, often for two or three generations. A few examples suffice. Fa-lang’s (506–581) grandfather was the prominent general and regional warlord Chou Feng-shu under the Southern Ch’i;13 his father Chou Shen-kuei was Extraordinary Cavalier Gentleman-in-Attendance at the Liang court and governor of P’ei, which was also the seat of the family.14 Hui-heng (514–589) was

6  Hsü Kao-seng chuan (hereafter hksc), 2:436b. 7  Ibid., 13:522a. 8  Chih-shun (532–604), hksc, 17:279c; Ching-ai (533–578), ibid., 23:625c; Shan-fu (d. 660), ibid., 26:602c. 9  hksc, 10:502a. 10  Ibid., 17:569b. 11  Ibid., 20:591b. 12  Ibid., 20:600b. 13  Ibid., p. 477b. The biography of Chou Feng-shu is found in the Nan Chi’i shu (Peking: Chung-hua shu-chü, 1974) 29:545–547. 14  See note 13.

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the grandson of Chou Shao, palace general under the Ch’i;15 his father Chou Fu was military commander of Ch’ang-shui; he ordered his son to devote himself to Confucian studies.16 The grandfather and the father of Tao-ch’eng (529–608) had served the Ch’i and the Liang in high civil and military matters.17 And, last but not least, for the first time we find monks from families who— rightly or wrongly—claimed an ancient and illustrious pedigree, like those from the genealogies of the great aristocratic families of medieval China, often from lineages that in the early fourth century had migrated to the Yangtze area. There are cases like Chen-hui (568–615), of the illustrious Ch’en clan of Ho-pei, who claimed to descend from the famous general and statesman Ch’en P’ing (died 178 bc), one of the founding fathers of the Han dynasty.18 Seng-min’s (ad 473–534) first ancestor was the first ruler of Wu, Sun Ch’üan (ad 181–252);19 Seng-feng (ca. 560–640) claimed direct descent from the founder of the Liang dynasty; his grandfather Hsiao I was the Prince of Ch’ang-sha, the elder brother of the Liang emperor Wu.20 Other monks traced their pedigree back to celebrities of the third century.21 After ad 600 the general rate of high-class recruitment stabilized, with a second peak in the period 650–725 (which covers, among other things, the reign of the fervently pro-Buddhist empress Wu). The general picture remains the same: many monks descending from high officials and scholars, and many cases in which an illustrious pedigree, sometimes reaching back to Han times, is mentioned.22 Imperial affiliations are not lacking either: Hui-ming (died 673) 15   Tien-chung chiang-chün. I have been unable to find any other reference to this curious title; I suppose that like so many other “generals” with flowery appellations in the Nanpei-ch’ao period it was an honorific post reserved for members of the high aristocracy. 16  Ibid., 9:494a. As was usual in this period, Confucian studies constituted a “family tradition.” 17  Ibid., 21:611a. 18  Ibid., 18:574b. The biography of Ch’en P’ing is found in Shih-chi, chüan 56, p. 2051 sqq, and in Han-shu, ch. 40, p. 2038 and following. 19   h ksc, 5:461c. 20  Ibid., 13:526b. The biography of Hsiao I is found in Liang shu, 23:359–360, and Nan shih, 51:1265–1266. 21  Hui-yin (538–627) claimed descent from the prominent fourth-century scholar-official Kan Pao, known, inter alia, as the author of the Sou shen chi; for his biography see Chin shu, 82:2149 and following (hksc, 13:522a). Hui-chün (563–630) was a descendant in the eleventh generation of the Marquis of Tu-t’ing, that is, Li Ching (mid-third century), briefly mentioned in Chin shu, chüan 46 as the father of the scholar-official Li Chung and as governor of Ch’in-chou (ibid., 14:535a). 22  Hsüan-tsang (602–664) descended from the model magistrate Ch’en Shih (ad 104–187) (hksc, 4:446c), and Hui-ch’eng (554–630) even claimed descent from the imperial Liu

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was a grandson of the Ch’en emperor Hsüan,23 and our sources mention three eighth- or ninth-century monks who belonged to the imperial Li clan of the reigning T’ang dynasty.24 One of these, Kuang-i (died 735), was a son of Li Ch’ung, the Prince of Lang-yeh who in 689 together with his father, the Prince of Yüeh, had made an abortive attempt to dethrone Empress Wu; the infuriated empress had thereupon exterminated his whole family, but Kuang-i had been saved by his wet-nurse.25 I have treated this aspect in some detail because sources show that the sixth century witnessed a second breakthrough, as spectacular as the first one of ca. ad 300, with the sudden influx of high-class elements into the top of the saṅgha. It made the saṅgha, indeed, a secondary elite, not only because of its religious and scholarly qualifications but also in many cases because of the illustrious social background of many of its monks. The Saṅgha as a New Phenomenon It may not be superfluous to stress the unique character of the monastic community when seen in the context of Chinese culture. Pre-Buddhist China of course knew a great variety of religious experts, and the emperor and his representatives in local government themselves had to perform certain religious rites. But the very notion of a clerical body as a corporate entity consisting of individuals who had severed all social ties was unknown. The nature of the saṅgha as a social and political corpus alienum led to a whole series of claims that, in a Chinese context, was quite formidable. As a type of organization it was unprecedented; it justified its aims and deviant behavior in metaphysical terms and yet claimed that its existence was advantageous, even most essential, for the world at large, “for the benefit of all beings.” In political terms, it claimed to be an autonomous body, free from government supervision and interference, exempt from taxes and corvee, and only subject to its own very clan of the Han (ibid., 24:663b). Shen-chieh (fl. ca. 690) was said to have the famous Confucian scholar Kuo T’ai (127–169 ad) as his ancestor (Sung Kao-seng chuan, hereafter sksc, 4:630c), and Hsüan-chüeh traced his pedigree back to another late Han worthy, Tai Kun (ibid., 8:758a). 23   s ksc, 8:756b. 24  Ch’i-an (d. 842) descended from an (unnamed) member of the imperial family who had fallen into disgrace and had been banished to the far south (Yüeh) (sksc, 11:776b); Taop’ei (878–955) was a member of the imperial clan, and had been born in the princely quarter of Ch’ang-an (ibid., 17:818c); for Kuang-i see note 25. 25   s ksc, 26:873a. Li Ch’ung and Li Chen, the Prince of Yüeh, respectively were a grandson and a son of Emperor T’ai-tsung. For the biography of Li Ch’ung see Chiu T’ang shu, 76:2663–2664.

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elaborate monastic code of discipline. Socially, it confronted Chinese culture with the unprecendented ideal of “leaving the family,” a most drastic rejection of family-oriented morality symbolized by the adoption of a religious name. In contrast with class-ridden medieval Chinese society, this open organization transcended all class distinctions. It also flouted the even more outspoken Confucian principle of excluding women from ceremonial functions; the female order of nuns, introduced in the fourth century, must have been a startling innovation. The Indian origin of the Doctrine and the notion of a center of spiritual authority outside China defied the prevailing attitude of Sinocentrism. All these claims and tensions took shape as soon as the saṅgha had come into contact with the elite. They evoked various reactions, both positive and negative, and often resulted in an unstable combination of acceptance and rejection: both recognizing the right of the saṅgha to exist and also constantly checking its growth and controlling its activities. This ambivalent attitude understandably characterized the religious policy of the T’ang. I have shown how, in the decades just preceding the reunification of the realm, the saṅgha had developed into an important secondary elite, the top layer of which was closely interwoven with the secular upper class—an “alternative intelligentsia” with powerful backing. But at the same time the saṅgha’s claims were, in principle and potentially, destructive for state and society, and it consequently had to be controlled. But T’ang religious policy was not merely repressive. It also aimed at a certain “incapsulation” of the clergy into the Chinese system—a constani attempt to transform the saṅgha from an alien body, standing outside state and society, into a functional group of “religious experts.” In the Chinese context this integration naturally took the form of bureaucratization. It can be recognised in a whole set of measures: administrative control, both external and internal; the introduction of clerical titles, insignia, and posthumous names; the creation of semibureaucratic institutions such as the Translation Office; the sale of ordination certificates comparable to the sale of secular ranks and titles; the compilation of the Buddhist Canon under imperial auspices; and the system of clerical examinations with its various “categories,” k’o, no doubt inspired by its secular counterpart. For my subject the last item is most important. The clerical examinations were not only intended to restrict the size of the saṅgha, but they were also aimed at “the selection of talent.” This Confucian conception had important consequences for education within the saṅgha, for, just as in the secular sphere, this “talent” was primarily associated with literacy, the ability to memorize texts, and proficiency in expressing one’s ideas in standardized stylistic forms.

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Training within the Saṅgha

What I have said so far about the nature, the status, and the functioning of the Buddhist clergy was meant merely as an introduction, somewhat lengthy, but indispensable to place our first subject—the training of the aspirant monk within the saṅgha—in its proper perspective. My starting point is the fact that in Sui and T’ang times the clergy must have been one of the most educated (or, more specifically, “literate”) groups of the population, even if the monk’s literary training was of a very special type. The highest level of this type of education was the domain of the tiny top of the clerical pyramid: the magistri, well-versed in Buddhist scriptural and scholastic literature. But also at a lower level the average monk had to possess a certain degree of literary skill. He had to memorize a considerable amount of text in order to be admitted into the saṅgha, and some of his daily activities required a degree of literacy no doubt far above that of the average layman. The importance of texts in the practice of Buddhism also appears from the phenomenon of the monastic library: in the T’ang, before the spread of printing, the libraries in Buddhist monasteries probably constituted the only sizable collections of books outside the capital. The importance of the saṅgha as an educated minority becomes even more evident if we look at its estimated size. Unfortunately there are no clerical census figures for this period; estimates are usually based on the 260,500 monks and nuns secularized during the great repression of Buddhism in ad 845. However, this figure certainly does not represent the size of the saṅgha as a whole, and it does not agree with certain other data.26 It may well be that the figure of 260,500 refers to fully ordained monks and nuns, who no doubt constituted a minority. Including the postulants and novices, the real figure would at least have to be doubled; the real size of the saṅgha in mid-T’ang times may have been somewhere between six hundred thousand and one million, that is, 1.5 percent to 2 percent of the population. By setting out to study the “intramural education” within the saṅgha, a number of questions arise. In what way, and at what age, was one admitted to the Order, and what were the most common motivations to do so? What were the disciple’s obligations toward his teacher(s)? Was he trained in reading and memorizing Buddhist texts, or was there a preliminary stage of training in “basic literacy”? If so, what elementary texts were used? Which Buddhist texts 26  According to T 2126 (Seng shih lüeh) by Tsan-ning (919–1001), 40:247c, in the year 830, when it was decided to grant ordination certificates to all “irregular” monks and nuns, no fewer than 700,000 applied to be ordained.

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were most important in training? Which minimal literary skills were required to become ordained? These questions can only partially be answered. The available information is scattered and scanty; not only are Chinese biographers, religious and secular alike, generally uninterested in the early youth experiences of their personages, apart from stereotyped “wonder child” anecdotes, but also the more significant activities of the “eminent monks” only took place later in their lives. For some answers, I must turn to the invaluable Tun-huang materials, always considering the question of how far Tun-huang is representative. Some information is contained in Vinaya passages devoted to novices and to ordination, but these formal rules were probably honored in the breach. In theory, entrance into the saṅgha was basically a matter of faith and of individual choice. That aspect understandably looms large in the monks’ biographies, even in the case of very young children; they contain many anecdotal passages about premature piety and attempts to persuade unwilling parents.27 In actual fact, poor families may often have sent their children to a monastery out of sheer necessity and probably also because the clerical state offered a chance to acquire a certain degree of literacy. It is, however, important to note that the Vinaya expressly forbids accepting any novice without the consent of his or her parents. Even more important for my subject is the question of the age of entrance; this obviously is related to the nature and level of monastic education. The Vinaya rules are clear and strict, but they appear to reflect ideal rather than real practice. According to the Dharmaguptaka-vinaya, in principle no person could be admitted below the age of eleven, with the exception of orphans 27  Some examples of parental resistance: sksc, 4:731a (Seng-yüan, 638–689); ibid., 10:769a (Tao-wu, 760–820, a case of a hunger-strike); ibid., 13:787a (Ch’üan-fu, 881–947); ibid., 16:810a (Chen-chün, 846–924). It is possible that the natural resistance felt by a Chinese family against a son entering the Order form the background of one of the most striking features of the monk’s biographies of this period: the great number of reported cases in which the mother during pregnancy or shortly before the conception has a prophetic dream in which the birth of a prominent monk is foretold or symbolically suggested. The content of the dreams shows much variation, although in general the symbolism is obvious enough. In some cases the expectant mother has a vision of monks who convey the message (e.g., sksc, 4:731a); in other cases she sees a sheen of light or smells incense (ibid., 10:717a, 15:803b); she dreams that she touches sacred objects in a temple (ibid., 7:751a) or that the moon penetrates into her bosom (ibid., 14:790b); she sees an Indian monk enter her home (ibid., 7:751a), she dreams that in front of her a pagoda rises up in heaven (ibid., 12:783b), and so on. Perhaps the theme serves as a kind of legitimation: the child was destined to become a monk so the family could do nothing about it.

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without any remaining relative—they could be taken into the monastery as “crow chasers” (ch’ü wu), that is, to perform the lightest menial tasks.28 The Mahāsāṅghika-vinaya places the normal minimum age at thirteen: “crow chasers” must be at least six years of age.29 The period of the novice’s training ends with his or her full ordination, which has a minimum age-limit of nineteen years. If the candidate is accepted as a novice, he is placed under the authority of two teachers. One of these, called ho-shang, trains him in disciplinary matters such as the observance of the Ten Rules;30 the other one, usually called ācārya (a-she-li) is charged with education in a more restricted sense, including the memorization of texts. Apart from the training in texts,31 in liturgy, and in the countless rules of monastic life, the novice is expected to serve his master in every respect. The disciplinary texts describe such tasks in great detail, down to the way in which the pupil must cleanse his master’s bowl and sweep the floor of his cell.32 But we should not rely too much upon this ideal image. In China, the practice of monastic life was no doubt less rigid. Thus, in a Sung commentary to the Dharmaguptaka-vinaya Yüan-chao distinguishes between real novices ( fa-t’ung sha-mi, “śramanera who conform to the Doctrine”) who observe the Ten Rules and formal (hsing-t’ung sha-mi) novices who only accept the tonsure.33 Moreover, already in T’ang times we find the first traces of a category of clerical candidates whose status is still below that of the novices: the (adult) 28  The rules for the admission of novices are treated in Dharmaguptaka-vinaya (T 1428 Ssufen lü), trans, by Buddhayaśas and Chu Fo-nien, late fourth century), 33–34:801b–812c. For the passage on the minimum age for admission, see ibid., p. 810c. 29  T 1425, Mahāsāṅghika-vinaya (trans. Buddhabhadra, early fifth century), 29:461b. 30  (1) Not killing; (2) not stealing; (3) no sexual intercourse; (4) not lying; (5) no alcoholic beverages; (6) no comfortable bed; (7) no ornaments; (8) no singing and no dancing; (9) not using or possessing gold or other precious things; (10) not eating beyond the fixed dinnertime. 31  Learning how to recite texts under the ācārya’s guidance is explicitly mentioned in all the Vinaya as one of the essential parts of the training program. In the Mahāsāṅghika-vinaya this part is even mentioned separately, on a par with the whole rest of religious training (T 1425, 29:461a). 32  E.g., the seventy-two rules regarding the right way of speaking with the master, entering his cell, laying out his clothes, preparing his bath, etc., as enumerated in the anonymous, probably fourth-century T 1471, Sha-mi shih chieh-fa ping wei-i; in the analogous T 1472 Sha-mi wei-i ching, trans. Gunavarman, ca. 431, and in Dānapāla’s version of ca. 1000, T 1472 Sha-mi shih chieh i-tse ching. 33  T 1805 Ssu-fen lü hsing-shih ch’ao tzu-ch’ih chi (late eleventh century), III.4:416b.

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­“practicants” (hsing-che) who were called “boys” (t’ung-tzu) if they were very young. I shall call them “postulants,” the term used by Kenneth Ch’en.34 The postulant stands halfway between the monastery and secular life: at his entrance he accepts the layman’s Five Rules (not the novice’s Ten); he studies Buddhist scriptures and works in the monastery in a subservient position, but he keeps his hair and is not exempted from taxes and corvée labor. After at least one year of service he can be accepted as a novice. This category of “disciples who keep their hair” (liu fa ti-tzu) is unknown in Indian Buddhism; its appearance in China is yet another symptom of the blurring of the borderline between clergy and lay believers in later Chinese Buddhism. However, historical sources show that practice often did not agree with the Vinaya prescriptions. For the Sui and T’ang periods in some 160 cases the age of entrance is specified. The average age—eleven years—agrees with the Vinaya, but there are many cases of entrance at a younger age, with a clear high at six to eight years (38 cases, e.g., nearly one-quarter) and a number of remarkably young cases: two of five years, and two of four. This is important because it shows that in such cases monastic training (and notably literary education) must have comprised the acquisition of elementary literacy. The “postulantship” mentioned above was a period of study and training before becoming a novice. This is amply confirmed by biographical sources. Around ad 650 the first reference appears to a distinction between the state of novice and that of a postulant; the same passage also makes clear that, in accordance with the T’ang policy of controlling the number of ordinations, the entrance as a novice was subjected to government approval. It relates how the (future) monk Seng-yüan at the age of twelve became a disciple (ti-tzu) of Huiyen in the Hu-ch’iu monastery and how he, twelve years later in 662, “by edict was allowed to shave his head.” Only then did he formally become a novice, for the text clearly states that later, under another master, he was fully ordained.35 The same combination of initial probationary period and government controlled admission to the novitiate appears in the biography of Shen-ch’ing, who around 760 at the age of twelve became a “disciple” and studied the Lotus 34  Cf. Kenneth Ch’en, Buddhism in China (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1964), p. 245. Ch’en denotes such postulants with the Chinese term t’ung-hsing. However, t’unghsing is a contracted term combining the first syllables of “boys” (t’ung-tzu) and “(adult) practicants” (hsing-che). The two categories are clearly distinguished by Tao-ch’eng in his Shih-shih yao-lan (ad 1019), T 2127, 1:166c: “from the age of seven to fifteen (sui) they all are called t’ung-tzu,” and ibid., p. 167a: “At the age of sixteen (sui) and beyond, they have to be called hsing-che.” 35   s ksc, 4:731a.

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sūtra, the Vimalakīrti-nirdeśa, and the Laṅkāvatāra-sūtra. “At that time the official regulations were very strict: only those among the house-leavers who were able to recite a thousand leaves (of text) were allowed to be tonsured.” Thanks to his thorough scriptural studies Shen-ch’ing passed the test and became a novice in the Ta-li era (766–780).36 As I shall show, the requirement to know by heart “a thousand pages” is, indeed, extreme; later I will comment upon the quantities of memorized text. The postulant Tao-piao (739–823) also had studied the scriptures in the monastery before passing the exam (757) and becoming a novice; after another eight years (765) he was fully ordained.37 Even more explicit is the case of Ta-i (691–780), another hard-working student. When in 705 emperor Chung-tsung restored the T’ang, he permitted, by a special act of grace, that persons could enter the saṅgha, and so the local governor Hu Yüan-li held an examination on scriptural exegesis (k’ao-shih ching-i). Ta-i came through as number 1 (ko chung ti-i: a terminology borrowed from the civil examination system) and became a novice.38 The recorded cases become more numerous in the ninth and the tenth century.39 The introduction of a probationary period before the novitiate sometimes appears to have shortened the latter. Thus, Hsüan-ch’ang, who became a “disciple” as an eight-year-old boy only became a novice in his eighteenth year and received full ordination one year later.40 The significance of this development for my subject is obvious: in this way, an essential part of scriptural training was shifted to an informal sphere, before the novitiate and halfway between monastery and secular life. Monastic life, formally starting with the novitiate, was expanded to include a group of usually very young postulants, “disciples who kept their hair”; unlike the regular novices, their number was not subjected to official restrictions. Clerical Examinations and the Test Requirements The introduction of selective clerical examinations41 is one of the most characteristic features of T’ang Buddhism. It clearly served two purposes: controlling 36  Ibid., 6:740c. 37  Ibid., 15:803c. 38  Ibid., 15:800a. 39  E.g., Hsüan-yüeh (ca. 840), sksc, 17:746a; Seng-chao (d. 891), ibid., p. 749a; Fu-chang (ca. 910), ibid., p. 751a; Wen-hsi (d. 826), ibid., 12:783c; Chen-chün (d. 859), ibid., 16:810a; Hsüan-ch’ang (ca. 810), ibid., 17:818a. 40   s ksc, 17:818a. 41  For a general survey of government policy vis-à-vis the ordination of monks, including the clerical examinations, see Michihata Ryōshū, Tōdai bukkyōshi no kenkyū (Kyoto: Hōzōkan, 1967), chüan 3, pp. 29–94.

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the size of the saṅgha and “upgrading” the clergy as a body of religious specialists. The influence of the civil examination system introduced near the end of the sixth century is evident. Like their secular counterpart, the clerical examinations fell under the Board of Rites; candidates were “recommended” and examined under the supervision of the local authorities; admission to the Order was usually bound to specified quotas, and the terminology was largely borrowed from the civil examinations. It is probable that when the system was introduced the primary aim was to control the size of the saṅgha. As a result of the privileged position of Buddhism under Empress Wu (r. 685–705), the clergy had no doubt increased greatly. After Chung-tsung had restored the T’ang (705), one of his first measures was the institution of clerical examinations in scriptural exegesis for postulants.42 It is only known that the requirements comprised the all-important Lotus sūtra: on that occasion the young Ta-i got his grade with highest honors by reciting that scripture.43 The Sung Kao-seng chuan (hereafter sksc) adds that the examination was held under the supervision of the governor.44 Fifty years later the empire was again in danger. The grave crisis caused by the revolt of An Lu-shan required drastic measures, also in the sphere of the supernatural. In order magically to reinforce the power of the dynasty, Su-tsung in 758 ordered Buddhist temples to be built at each of the five sacred mountains, the symbols and protectors of the territory. Of course, the effectiveness of this measure wholly depended on the “quality” of the monks, and perhaps that is why on that occasion the emperor also gave new guidelines for the clerical examinations. Prominent monks were instructed to select postulants for the novitiate, and the amount of memorized text was fixed at five hundred pages45—a detail that is corroborated by the sksc.46 However, this figure apparently refers to a minimum requirement; another sksc passage speaks of seven hundred pages.47 And it appears that personal status and influence

42   Shih-shih ch’i-ku lu, by Chüeh-an (1266–1355), T 2037, 3:822. There are some traces of still earlier clerical examinations, held by a committee of prominent monks (fifty ta-te) for the selection of 150 postulants, as early as 658; cf. Michihata, Tōdai bukkyōshi no kenkyū, p. 34. However, probably this ad hoc measure was limited to the metropolitan area. 43   Fo-tsu t’ung-chi, by Chih-p’an (mid-thirteenth century), T 2035, 30:371b. 44   s ksc, 15:600a. 45   Shih-shih t’ung-chien, by Pen-chüeh (Sung), chüan 9, quoted by Michihata, Tōdai bukkyōshi no kenkyū, p. 35. 46   s ksc, 15:803a, biography of Chen-ch’eng. 47  Ibid., 15:803c, biography of Tao-piao.

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occasionally could also lead to much lower figures.48 There is another reason to question the efficacy of the system, for during the same crisis the first attempt was made to refill the depleted treasury by selling ordination certificates—a malpractice that reached enormous proportions under the Sung. In 773, Emperor Tai-tsung introduced a more diversified program, no doubt based on the civil examinations system. Clerical examinations were divided into three “categories” (k’o): Scriptures (ching), Discipline (lü), and Treatises (lun), that is, scholastics.49 This meant an important shift from form, the purely mechanical memorization of texts, to content. The candidate’s knowledge and insight were tested by letting him write an essay, although memorization no doubt was also required. The same devaluation of memorization appears from a measure of the year 825: the authorities involved50 were ordered by edict to create a clerical examination committee charged with testing the postulants’ ready knowledge. In this case only 150 pages were demanded from male candidates and 100 from female ones.51 Under Wen-tsung (r. 827–840), who again tried to subject the saṅgha to strict government control, the demands suddenly became excessive: 1,000 pages of memorized texts.52 But that was a last attempt, and, moreover, one incompatible with another measure taken in 830 (cf. note 27) that granted ordination 48  T 2120 Piao-chih chi, a collection of memorials submitted to the authorities by Amoghavajra (Pu-k’ung, 905–974), collected and published by his collaborator Yüan-chao around 778, in six chüan. On p. 835c in a memorial of the year 767 he asks permission for ordination (as novices) on behalf of some postulants, specifying the texts that they have memorized and the number of pages involved. Most texts mentioned here are dhāraṇī, in accordance with Amoghavajra’s tantric specialization. In one case the number of pages memorized is not more than 120. 49   s ksc, 16:807a; biography of Shen Ts’ou. 50  The “Commissioners of Merit of the Two Avenues” (liang chih kung-te shih), the civil organ that since the late eighth century was responsible for controlling the saṅgha; cf. Tsukamoto Zenryū, “Tō chūki irai no chōan no kudokushi,” in Tōhō gakuhō 4 (1933): 368– 406. The “two avenues” refer to the eastern and western halves into which the capital was divided. In 807 the authority of this organ was enlarged to include the task of controlling the Taoist clergy as well (cf. T 2216 Seng-shih lüeh, 2:245c, and T 2035 Fo-tsu t’ung-chi, 41:380b). 51   Ts’e-fu yüan-kuei (reprint, Chung-hua shu-chü: Peking, 1960), 42:482. 52   s ksc, 6:740c, biography of Shen-ch’ing, where the text also expressly says that at that time the requirements had been made very severe. Shen-ch’ing was examined under the supervision of the prefect of Mien-chou (present-day Mien-yang in Ssu-ch’uan), which again shows that also at a local level the secular authorities controlled the admission to the saṅgha.

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certificates to all illegal monks and nuns. Shortly thereafter the great persecution of Buddhism took place (842–845); it apparently ended the old-style clerical examinations. When Hsüan-tsung almost immediately after his father’s death (847) restored the saṅgha, he introduced examinations of a new type, in which the candidates were not tested on scriptural knowledge but on “religious quality”; the new three categories were defined as “disciplinary behavior,” “meditation,” and “wisdom.”53 Thus, the general picture is one of an erratic policy, without stable guidelines and subject to great fluctuations. The amount of memorization varied from a very reasonable 150 pages (about one-half of the Lotus sūtra) to the extreme demand of 1,000 pages.54 However, we must assume that the system did contribute to the intellectual level of the saṅgha as a secondary elite in T’ang times, at least in terms of literacy. There is no detailed description of the content of the “required reading,” but from scattered pieces of information at least an impression of what was demanded is available. Training centered upon the memorization (sung, nien) of considerable amounts of scriptural text, counted in “rolls” (chüan), “sheets” (chih), or “syllables” (yen, tzu). The amounts given in the biographies as having been memorized by individual monks are not representative because they are mentioned as exceptional feats: a daily absorption of “five pages”;55 “a

53  T 2035 Fo-tsu t’ung-chi, 42:388b. 54  These “pages” or “sheets,” chih, were strips of paper glued together to form a book-roll. The size of such sheets had at an early age been standardized at a width of ca. 24 cm. (one Han foot) and a length of 41 to 48.5 cm. The number of columns per sheet was not fixed (the Tun-huang manuscripts show great variation), neither was the number of characters per column (in the Tun-huang materials varying from twelve to more than fifty). Cf. Tsien Tsuen-hsuin, Written on Bamboo and Silk (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1962) pp. 153–155. On the other hand, the practice of fixing the requirements for the examinations at a certain round number of “sheets” proves that in these cases chih denotes a certain standard unit of counting. We can perhaps derive that “standard sheet” from the number of chih presented in the last two chapters of the K’ai-yüan shih-chiao lu, ad 730 (T 2124, chüan 19–20: Ju tsang lu, containing a list of manuscripts recently added to the imperial collection). In this list the size of Kumārajīva’s version of the Vimalakīrti-nirdeśa is “61 chih” (T 2124, p. 703c). Because the Lotus sūtra contains approximately seventy-eight thousand characters, and the Vimalakírti about twenty-nine thousand, it follows that of both scriptures the average “sheet” counted about five hundred characters. Perhaps this was the norm used for fixing the amount of memorized text for the clerical examinations. 55   h ksc, 14:537b.

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thousand characters”;56 “several thousands”57 or “eight thousand characters”;58 a total memorization of “more than twenty rolls,”59 or even “forty rolls.”60 More significant is the information on the nature of the texts memorized. It confirms the supreme importance of the Lotus sūtra (no doubt in Kumārajīva’s version), by far the most popular scripture in medieval Chinese Buddhism.61 Of the forty-one cases in which specific texts are mentioned in relation to the training phase, the Lotus sūtra figures sixteen times and the Vimalakīrtinirdeśa and the Mahāparinirvāna-sūtra six times each. The memorization of a long and complicated text like the Lotus sūtra or the Vimalakīrti-nirdeśa was not an easy job; the gifted Chen-hui (862–935) spent a full year on it.62 Even if the texts required for the civil examinations were, in general, far more difficult, it cannot be denied that such a program did lead to a fair level of literacy. Another interesting aspect is the fact that in this preliminary stage the texts chosen (or rather “imposed,” for they were “given” (shou) by the master) practically are limited to well-known scriptures (sūtra); the role played by scholastic texts is minimal. The biographical sources clearly show that scholastic study—closely related to the various “schools” of Sui-T’ang Buddhism—took place after full ordination and very often in other centers. That phase of “specialization” did not belong to the curriculum of the postulant or novice.63 56  Ibid., 16:557a. 57   s ksc, 4:729c. 58  Ibid., 7:746a. 59  Ibid., 7:749c. 60   h ksc, 3:442a. 61  For the all-important place occupied by the Lotus sūtra in the Tun-huang materials, see Lionel Giles, Six Centuries at Tun-huang (London: The Chinese Society, 1944), p. 7. His observation is fully supported by the historical and bibliographical sources in which the number of significant references to the Lotus sūtra (such as recorded cases of study, recital, explanation, the writing of prefaces and commentaries, etc.) is roughly equal to the number of references to all other scriptures taken together. 62   s ksc, 7:748a. 63  In the last phase of the novitiate, or shortly after full ordination, many monks (at least the “eminent” ones of whom we have biographies) enter a period of itinerant travel and study—a way of advanced training and deepening of knowledge and experience that curiously resembles the Wanderleben of medieval students in Western Europe. Within the limits of this chapter it is impossible to do justice to that aspect. A study of the phenomenon in its totality—the Indian background of wandering mendicant monkhood; the movement of monks among different centers; their study under various masters, and the way in which this phase of “roaming about” (yu fang) influenced their later

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Elementary Training in Secular Texts in the Monastery There are unmistakable signs that besides Buddhist sūtras Confucian texts were also studied in the monastery—a practice that can be traced back to the fourth century.64 Unfortunately, our biographical sources only refer to it in very general terms, such as “at the age of twelve he became a novice, and achieved mastery in both canonical and secular texts.”65 From such statements I cannot infer what non-Buddhist texts were studied; in the next section I shall try to provide some information through indirect evidence. It is clear that neither the great Mahāyāna scriptures nor the Confucian classics could be used in elementary teaching, and many postulants and novices were young children who needed training in basic literacy. Historical sources are silent about this aspect. However, in order to get a glimpse of it I can turn to a large body of Tun-huang documents, of a type to which so far little attention has been given but which in this perspective becomes very relevant: the writing exercise. Hundreds of such attempts to master the Chinese script have been preserved. In many cases it is evident that they were written under guidance: they often contain corrections and sometimes also large-size model characters more or less successfully copied by the pupil. The nature of the texts provides an impression of these first gradus ad Parnassum. As could be expected, the most commonly used primer is the “Thousand Character Text” (Ch’ien tzu wen), the well-known abecedarium created by Chou Hsing-ssu around ad 540; because of its unique features (each character occurs only once, and the text can easily be memorized by its rhyme and tetrasyllabic structure), the primer has been used as a mnemonic primer into modern times. The writing exercises are mostly found on the verso side of book-rolls where the recto side carries the main text(s). But they are also found on loose pieces of paper, in the empty space at the end of a text, or even between columns of other writings—apparently paper was too expensive to be wasted. They vary from the most primitive scribbles, obviously the first attempts at writing, to welldeveloped characters. Combined with the known age of many beginners— five or six years—they move readers by the picture they evoke: tip of the tongue protruding; a tiny hand clutching an unwieldy writing brush.

activities—would constitute an important contribution to knowledge of the practice of Chinese Buddhism of the Sui-T’ang period. 64  Cf. Zürcher, Buddhist Conquest of China, Vol. 7, p. 9. 65  Tao-hung, ca. 590, hksc, 15:547a; analogous remarks on Fa-lin, ca. 635, ibid., 24:636b: I-ching, ca. 640, sksc, 1:710b; Ta-i, ca. 700, ibid., 15:800a; Shen-yung, ca. 725, ibid., 19:815b.

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figure 2.1 Writing exercise: an advanced student. (P 3114)

Many examples show the relation with elementary education. In P 3114 (Fig. 2.1) the master has written, in a horizontal line at the tip of the scroll, a series of model characters; a rather advanced pupil has repeated each character many times in vertical columns. The same system, but in a much less developed hand, is found in S 2703 (Fig. 2.2). It contains, in endless repetition, lines 55–66 and 34–48 of the Ch’ien tzu wen, with the added remark that this is the fruit of seven day’s labor (24–26 and 18–21 of two unspecified months). More advanced are S 5491 (Fig. 2.3) and especially S 5657 (Fig. 2.4), an excellent piece of homework based on Ch’ien tzu wen, lines 46–47. But for the real beginners even that primer was too complicated: S 4106 (Fig. 2.5) shows us the desperate attempts of the first hour, limited to some very simple characters. The most advanced pupils could concentrate on writing and memorizing rare characters and variants, sometimes adding the pronunciation (e.g., S 4622; Fig. 2.6). The next stage probably consisted of copying the moralistic compendiums “Essential Teaching for the Instruction of Young People,” K’ai meng yao hsün, a short text in rhyming four-syllable lines, composed by Ma Jen-shou. In T’ang times this text was often used as a primer: the Tun-huang materials contain many, mostly fragmentary, writing exercises based on it (e.g., P 3029; Fig. 2.7). The same role was played by another popular textbook, the “Family Teachings

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figure 2.2 Writing exercise based on Ch’ien tzu wen: a less developed hand. (S 2703)

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figure 2.3 Writing exercise: a more advanced student. (S 5491)

of T’ai-kung,” T’ai-kung chia-chiao. Another type of secular text copied, probably at a still more advanced level, contained practical exercises such as passages from model letters. Even though these texts themselves are secular, it is clear that they were produced in a religious context and were associated with Buddhism and monastic life. This is shown by many writing exercises based on Buddhist texts and sometimes even containing a mixture of secular and Buddhist elements. For example, P 3168 (Fig. 2.8) combines seven columns of Ch’ien tzu wen with a number of repeated Buddhist terms, and S 5712 (Fig. 2.9) shows a list of rare and variant characters and some Buddhist expressions.

The Role of the Monastery in Educating the Laity

Thus far I have mainly been dealing with education within the saṅgha, although I cannot be quite sure in the case of writing exercises in which laymen also may have been involved. Turning to the external educational activities, I must repeat that this aspect is less well-documented than the first. Apart from a number of stray references in secular literature, the main body of evidence suggesting that the monastery played such a role is found in the Tunhuang materials. I should stress that running schools for the lay public is not one of the wellknown social or charitable activities of the Buddhist clergy in T’ang China, as the establishment of dispensaries and orphanages was. As I said before, the role of Buddhism in education was restricted, because of the dominance of Confucianism in this sector of social activity. At the middle and higher levels of education (secondary training in district schools and upward) one must assume that Buddhist institutions played no role, for, if they did, they probably would have been mentioned—and condemned—in secular sources. Monastic Paul W. Kroll - 978-90-04-38020-2 Downloaded from Brill.com11/15/2020 06:09:18AM via San Francisco State University

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figure 2.4 Writing exercise based on Ch’ien tzu wen: an especially advanced student. (S 5657)

activities in the field of external education must therefore be sought at grassroots level, in the informative sphere of the “community schools” (hsianghsüeh, hsiang-hsü) relatively free from the regulating influence of the official school system. Unfortunately, little is known about such village schools in T’ang times, apart from the fact that they existed. There is, of course, abundant information on the central institutions in the capital: the imperial colleges (Kuo-tzu hsüeh and T’ai-hsüeh, in principle only accessible to sons of high officials, and the Paul W. Kroll - 978-90-04-38020-2 Downloaded from Brill.com11/15/2020 06:09:18AM via San Francisco State University

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figure 2.5 Writing exercise: very simple characters. (S 4106)

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figure 2.6 Writing exercise: rare characters and variants. (S 4622)

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figure 2.7 Writing exercise based on K’ai meng yao hsün. (P 3029)

ssu men hsüeh, also open to selected commoners and sons of officials of the middle ranks). But that was the top. As usual, the information becomes less specific—and probably more schematized—at the lower levels. There were official schools at prefecture and county levels (chou-hsüeh, hsien-hsüeh), each divided into several categories according to the relative importance of the administrative unit. But even at the hsien level these official schools did not engage in elementary education. Thus, the lowest category of county school, with a modest staff of one “professor of Classics” (ching-hsüeh po-shih) and one assistant teacher (chu-chiao), admitted students at the age of seventeen to twenty-four years, and its curriculum was limited to the Five Classics.66 However, there also were private schools, probably of a more elementary character, for an edict of 733 specifically allows commoners who have set up such schools to send pupils (probably only the best ones) to the prefectural and district schools for instruction in the Classics.67 The situation becomes wholly unclear at hsiang level, beyond the reach of the official educational system. 66  Cf. Yü Shu-lin, Chung-kuo chiao-yü shih (Taipei: Taiwan Provincial Normal University, 1961), 5:409–528; for education at the local level see especially pp. 578–585. 67  Cf. ibid., p. 431.

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figure 2.8 Writing exercise: a combination of Ch’ien tzu wen entries and Buddhist terms. (P 3168)

However, Buddhist biographical sources occasionally show that such village schools did function, and they, unlike the official schools, were visited by young boys. Thus, the monk Niu-yün (672–735) in his early youth seemed to be stupid. He was sent to the hsiang-hsüeh where “after a whole day he still did not know one character”; at the age of eleven his desperate parents finally sent him to a monastery.68 As a young boy, Ch’ang-chüeh (892–968) in the hsianghsüeh surpassed all other pupils in “reciting the canonical scriptures.”69 At the hsiang-hsüeh the curriculum comprised the “five classics”70 and the “(writings of) the Hundred Masters.”71 If Buddhist educational activities were directed at all toward the laity, it would be in this world of small and elementary village schools. And in fact, Tun-huang documents do suggest that at the very end of this period (ninth and tenth centuries) such a development had taken place and that lay “students” were somehow attached to Buddhist monasteries. 68   h ksc, 21:943b. 69  Ibid., 28:996c. 70  Yüan-chen, 704–790; ibid., 20:838c. 71  Tseng-jen, 812–871; ibid., 26:977a.

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figure 2.9 Writing exercise: a combination of rare variant characters and Buddhist terms. (S 5712)

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Many hundreds of Tun-huang texts are provided with colophons of several types, varying from purely religious expressions of faith and of the expected beneficial karmic results of the work of copying to very factual notes specifying the name and status of the copyists and the date of copying. Because in the vast majority of cases the colophons are attached to Buddhist texts, the persons who have either copied the manuscript or ordered its copying mostly refer to themselves by typically Buddhist epithets, such as “the (Buddha’s) disciple,” lay devotee (upāsaka, upāsikā), “disciple having accepted the (Bodhisattva) vows,” “donor,” or “sūtra copyist.” However, we also find a considerable number of colophons signed by persons who call themselves “student” or “young scholar” (hsüeh-shih-lang).72 This appears to be an informal title, somewhat comparable with the popular use of yüan-wai to denote an “educated person” in Sung times; it does not figure in any of the official descriptions of the T’ang school system, but it obviously belongs to the sphere of study, education, and scholarship. Upon looking more closely at this type of colophon, we find that practically none is attached to a Buddhist scripture: the works copied by such “students” almost invariably are secular. This could be explained by assuming that such manuscripts are external materials that somehow found their way into the (basically Buddhist) Tun-huang cache. This, however, is contradicted by the fact that in more than one-half of the cases the hsüeh-shih-lang are associated with specific monasteries in the Tun-huang region and that in some of such colophons monks are mentioned beside the “Young Masters.” Some examples follow: S 395

Text: “Dialogue between Confucius and (the boy) Hsiang T’o,” K’ung-tzu Hsiang T’o. Colophon, dated 943: “Recorded by Chang Yen-pao, hsüeh-lang of the Ching-t’u Monastery.”

72  In his study on religious societies (she) in Tun-huang, “Tonkō shutsudo ‘sha’ bunsho no kenkyū” (Tōhōgakuhō 35 (1974): 217), Chikusa Masaaki defines the hsüeh-(shih)-lang as “student copyists” (tenaraisei) attached to a monastery; according to him, they were also the people who wrote, often by way of writing exercises, the many casual notes and documents (like club circulars) and other secular texts found among the Tun-huang materials. His view is shared by Victor Mair, who has listed those materials in his “Lay Students and the Making of Written Vernacular Narrative: An Inventory of Tun-huang Manuscripts.” Chinoperl Papers no. 10 (1981): 5–96. To my knowledge the only study specially devoted to the hsüeh-(shih)-lang is a short paper by Ogawa Kan’ichi. “Tonkō butsuji no gakushirō,” Ryūkoku daigaku ronshū 400/401 (1973): 488–506.

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Text: “Classic of Filial Piety,” Hsiao-ching. Colophon, dated 943: “Copying recorded by Kao Ch’ing-tzu, hsüehshih-lang of the Yung-an Monastery.” Text: “Ballad of the Swallow,” Yen-tzu fu. Colophon, dated 924: “Copying recorded by Tu Yu-sui, hsüeh-shihlang of the Yung-an Monastery.” Text: “The Analects,” Lun-yü (two chapters with Cheng-i Commentary). Colophon, “… by…, hsüeh-lang of the Chin-kuang-ming Monastery…. In the sixth month of the mou-yin year (probably 858) the monk [sic] Ma Yung-lung made a copy in his own hand of one roll of the Analects.” Text: “Verses on the Classic of Filial Piety,” Yung Hsiao-ching. Colophon dated 942: “Copying recorded by Chang Fu-ying, hsüehshih of the San-chieh Monastery.”

The educational aspect also appears from some “hsüeh-shih-lang colophons” attached to elementary textbooks used in schools, notably the K’ai meng yaohsün, which we also have come across in the context of the writing exercises. Thus, P 3189 (Fig. 2.10), containing the last part of the K’ai meng yao-hsün, bears a colophon stating that it was copied “by Chang Yen-tsung, hsüeh-shih-lang of the San-chieh Monastery.” The association of the name of a hsüeh-shih-lang with a monastery is very frequent: out of the sixty-seven colophons of this type assembled by Victor Mair (cf. note 72) in no less than thirty-nine cases such lay students are connected with one of nine monasteries in the Tun-huang area. Because practically all such texts are of a secular nature,73 this suggests a merger between Buddhist and secular education at the grass-roots level. It appears that this type of education comprised students of different levels. Perhaps the more advanced ones (the hsüeh-shih-lang?) also acted as teachers: another manuscript of the K’ai meng yao-hsün (S 705, dated 851) bears a colophon stating that it “was copied by An Wen-lu, at the dictation of the student (hsüeh-sheng) Sung Wen-hsien.” Another interesting fact is that the dated or datable colophons of this type all are concentrated in a rather short and late period, globally between 850 and 990. We must conclude that the role played by Buddhist monasteries in secular elementary education clearly was a late development that took place in the transitional period covering the last decades of the T’ang, the 73  The only exception seems to be P 3398 (no. 121 in Mair’s inventory), a copy of the Diamond Sūtra made by a lay student, dated ad 943.

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Five Dynasties, and the beginning of the Sung. Such a development would, indeed, fit into the general picture of Buddhism in that period, characterized by strong secularizing tendencies. Because these colophons point to the existence of a certain type of secular education associated with Buddhist monasteries in the Tun-huang region since the late T’ang, we may venture one step further and study the relative frequency of secular texts in the Tun-huang materials; this may provide a clue to the nature and content of the curriculum. A provisional count (based on the Stein, Pelliot, and Peking collections and the published part of the Leningrad catalog) yields a result, which, indeed, seems significant. The following texts occupy the ten top places: 1. Lun-yü (63 entries) 2. Ch’un-ch’iu with Tso- and Ku-liang chuan (52) 3. Various encyclopedias (lei-shu) of modest size (46) 4. Chi’en-tzu wen (35) 5. T’ai-kung chia-chiao (35)74 6. The Mao version of the Odes (30) 7. The Book of Documents (26) 8. The Classic of Filial Piety (25) 9. The Ch’ieh-yün and other pronouncing dictionaries (24) 10. Various other dictionaries (tzu-shu) (19) This is, indeed, what we would expect of elementary education: from the basic primer Ch’ien tzu-wen the pupil learns basic characters and standard expressions; the primer T’ai-kung chia-chiao teaches the pupil moralistic themes in terse and simple language; the Confucian classics clearly emphasize the Analects (Lun-yü and Hsiao-ching also constituted “compulsory memorization” in the official school system); some short encyclopedias and dictionaries are included. The popular and nonofficial character of this type of education is also shown by the fact that these more or less “curricular” texts are embedded in a mass of popular materials: rhapsodies ( fu); simple poems and doggerels (notably of the Wang Fan-chih type); the apocryphal Li Ling / Su Wu letters, pien-wen, model letters, and the like. But what is not found in the Tun-huang 74  The work entitled “Family Teaching of T’ai-kung” is a collection of moralistic utterances expressed in four-syllable verse. In T’ang times, it was used as a primer, together with some other popular elementary textbooks, for which see Meng Hsien-ch’eng and others. Chung-kuo ku-tai chiao-yü shih tzu-liao (Peking: Jen-min chiao-yü ch’u-pan she (1961), pp. 177–179.

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The last part of K’ai meng yao hsün. (P 3189)

secular materials is as significant. Apart from the Wen-hsüan (the classical anthology that in T’ang times was used as the standard textbook for stylistic training, and this is well-represented with eighteen entries), all the rest of “higher literature” hardly plays a role at this level. The same is true for the dynastic histories that are only marginally represented. This distribution of titles, combined with the emergence of “students” or “young scholars” associated with

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Buddhist monasteries, at least gives a vague impression of the type of external education that had developed in the late T’ang as a sideline activity of the saṅgha, possibly as the result of a merger of the training of semimonastic “postulants” and the community schools (hsiang-hsüeh) below the district level. The fact that in T’ang times, and especially in the latter half of that period, Buddhist monasteries all over China had acquired such an educational role is corroborated by numerous references in secular literature. In a detailed study and a monument of erudition,75 Yen Keng-wang has listed some two hundred instances in which individuals, many of whom later became prominent as poets, administrators, or generals, in their early years are said to have spent some time, sometimes several years, in Buddhist monasteries. In most cases it is clear that some kind of education or literary training is involved, as appears from the use of terms meaning “to study” or “to receive instruction” (hsüeh, hsi yeh, ssu yeh); and, although in general no particulars about the kind of training are given, a few most explicitly state that the education they received in the monastery was not based on Buddhist but on Confucian and secular texts. Thus, Li Chih who during the 880s served as a courtier and high official, had spent three years in the Hui-shan Monastery at Wu-hsi around 830, during which time he had studied various Confucian classics: Shih-chi and Han-shu, Chuang-tzu, Han Fei-tzu, and the Li-sao.76 In the same monastery somewhat earlier, around 800, the future poet Li Shen had studied at the age of fourteen or fifteen; later he returned to the Hui-shan monastery for ten years, living in a monk’s cell and copying some five hundred rolls of “classics and history.”77 The most informative passage deals with a certain Tuan Wei, who in the second half of the ninth century became a poet of modest renown. In his youth Tuan Wei had been illiterate. He later regretted his lack of literary skill, and when he heard that the Buddhist monastery on Mt. Chung-t’iao (in Shansi)78 was an important center of study—a “students’ lair” (hsüeh-sheng yüan-sou)—he went there to be instructed. At first the students despised him and did not want to give him canonical texts to be memorized. However, after he had amazed them with his ability to memorize secular poetry and a rhyming dictionary, 75  “T’ang-jen hsi yeh shan-lin ssu yüan chih feng-shang,” in his T’ang-chih-yen-chiu ts’ungkao (Hong Kong, 1971), pp. 267–424. 76   Ch’üan Tang-wen (reprint, Taipei: Hui-wen shu chü 1961), 724:11b: “Preface to the Poems on the Hui-shan Monastery,” T’i Hui-shan ssu shih hsü, dated ad 869. 77  Ibid., 816:3b–4a: “Note on Our Family Temple in the Hui-shan Monastery” (Hui-shan ssu chia-shan chi) by Li Shen’s grandson Li Chün, dated 879. 78  Probably the Wan-ku Monastery on Mt. Chung-t’iao, where according to T’ang chih-yen (sppy, 7:1b), the future general Hsü Shang in the early ninth century spent some time.

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they transmitted (shou) the Hsiao-ching to him. After that he was able to become widely read in the Classics and secular literature within six months. The text explicitly says that only after having completed this crash-course in literary education did he leave the monastery.79 The examples given by Yen Keng-wang, and especially the episode about Tuan Wei, are instructive in several ways. First, they show that the external educational activities of monasteries, of which some material remains among the Tun-huang documents, were not limited to the northwestern frontier region; the cases mentioned are spread throughout almost the whole of China. Second, in the case of Tuan Wei no mention is made of studying under a particular “master”; we get the impression of a kind of community of “students,” shu-sheng, from whom Tuan Wei gets his instruction, which reminds us of the role of the hsüeh-shih-lang in the Tun-huang material. Third, the texts clearly show that young people who studied in Buddhist (and, occasionally, also in Taoist) monasteries did so to prepare themselves for the official examinations, and in many instances this informal study is explicitly related to the students’ humble background and/or poverty. Finally, it is striking that most examples date from the ninth century, which again agrees with the information from Tun-huang presented above. Yen Keng-wang suggests a direct link between the practice of studying in monasteries and the rise of Confucian academies (shu-yüan) in Sung times. This interesting observation deserves to be followed by further research. However, at this stage the available information is too scanty and too unspecific to regard it as more than a promising but as yet untested working hypothesis. The only form of institutionalization of this type of education explicitly mentioned a few times is called ‘charitable schools” (i-hsüeh), a term that (like shu-yüan itself) strongly suggests a secular origin: an institution based on voluntary contributions and inspired by feelings of “civic duty.”80 79   T’ang chih-yen, sppy (Shanghai: Chung-hua shu-chü, 1936), pp. 5b–6a. 80  The term i-hsüeh is in itself ambivalent because in context unrelated to any educational institution it occasionally means “(scriptural) exegesis” as a scholastic specialization. Thus, hksc, 25:538c, states that among the disciples of Fa-min (578–645) no less than seventy “monks (specialized in) exegesis,” i-hsüeh sha-men. In one of the two cases mentioned by Yen Keng-wang T’ang chih yen-chiu ts’ung-kao, (p. 374) it seems that the text refers to this kind of i-hsüeh: according to Chiu T’ang-shu (Peking: Chung-hua shu-chü, 1975), 177:4597, the chief minister P’ei Hsiu (?787–860), when serving as military governor of Feng-hsiang (S. W. Shensi) in 860, often went to the Buddhist monasteries in that region for learned discussions because “there were many i-hsüeh; his teachers (all) were monks.” Because this took place at the very end of P’ei Hsiu’s carreer, when he was in his seventies, it is clear that the term does not refer to any institution of elementary secular

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The Production and Distribution of Written Materials Finally, we may pose the question: “To what extent has Buddhism contributed to general literacy and reading habits through the production and spread of texts?” It is a vast and complicated subject, and I shall limit myself to a few general remarks on three aspects: (1) the formation, size, and function of monastic libraries; (2) the distribution and circulation of Buddhist texts outside the monastery; and (3) the modest role played by printing in pre-Sung times. Monastic Libraries constitute another area largely unknown except for the evidence of Tun-huang materials. The large metropolitan monasteries patronized by the court possessed large collections of Buddhist texts. At the center, the mass of available texts was, moreover, constantly enlarged by state-sponsored translation activities and the production of Chinese scholastic works that were offered to the court, with the request that these texts be “entered into the Canon,” ju tsang. But in this chapter I shall not touch upon that large-scale and well-organized production of new texts. It is a process that, as regards size, level of organization, and degree of state supervision, reached its apogee in the early Sung. For my purpose it is noteworthy that in some cases, especially in early T’ang times, Buddhist texts were consciously distributed from the center throughout the empire. In 648 copies of Hsüan-tsang’s voluminous translation of the Yogācāra-siddhi-śāstra were sent by imperial edict to a great number of prefectures,81 and in 689 empress Wu ordered that the Ta-yün ching (a text she “promoted” for political reasons) should be spread throughout the realm.82 Emperor Hsüan-tsung did the same in 736 with the Diamond Scripture” (Vajracchedikā, Chin-kang ching) together with a commentary in his own hand.83 In one case, the distribution was made for the benefit of the wordly authorities. education, and I take it that also in this case it simply meant “(scholastic) exegetes.” The second example given by Yen Keng-wang is also of questionable relevance: it refers to the fact that as a young man Tsung-mi (780–841) studied in the i-hsüeh yuan in Sui-chou (present-day Sui-ning in Ssu-ch’uan), a flourishing center of Confucian studies. There he in ad 807 met the Ch’an master Tao-yüan “who in the course of his travels had come to this prefecture.” Tsung-mi was deeply impressed by him and immediately became his disciple (Yüan-chüeh ching ta-shu ch’ao, chüan 1B, Zoku-zōkyō I.14, p. 222b). Because this meeting took place when Tsung-mi was immersing himself in Confucian studies (in fact, according to his biography, sksc, 6:741c, this encounter precisely brought about his conversion to Buddhism), the “I-hsüeh Hall” at Sui-chou undoubtedly was a Confucian school, and there is no reason to assume that it had any relation with Buddhist monastic institutions. 81  T 2154 K’ai-yüan shih-chiao lu, 8:559c; see also T 2053 Ta Tz’u-en ssu san-tsang fa-shih chuan (biography of Hsüan-tsang, by Hui-li and Yen-ts’ung, ca. 665), 6:256a. 82  T 2126 Seng-shih lüeh, 3:248c; T 2035 Fo-tsu t’ung-chi, 39:369c: Chiu T’ang-shu, 6:121. 83   s ksc, 14:795b (biography of Hsüan-yen, 674–742).

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When in 639 another attempt was made to “sift” (sha-t’ai) the saṅgha by secularization of all undesirable elements, emperor T’ai-tsung provided all provincial governors with copies of the I-chiao ching, a short text in which the essential duties and norms of behavior of the saṅgha are explained; and consequently it could be used by the authorities as a guideline in dealing with the clergy.84 However, as soon as one leaves the center, information on Buddhist collections becomes very scarce. The lacuna is only partially filled by the Tun-huang materials: about fifty lists of titles refer to specific monastic libraries, but none of these contains a complete inventory; most lists are fragmentary, or are “lists of new acquisitions” or “lists of lacking volumes.” However, some documents, like S 3624 (Fig. 2.11), a fragment of the inventory of the San-chieh monastery, certainly evoke the picture of large and well-kept libraries. Another document, P 3010, entitled “List of new manuscripts of canonical scriptures, year by year added (to the collection) of the San-chieh Monastery” (San-chieh ssu li-nien hsin-hsieh tsang-ching mu-lu), suggests great activity and considerable growth (Fig. 2.12). In many cases the new acquisitions only were parts of scriptures. This way of library building probably was a general phenomenon outside the Tun-huang region as well. Handwritten texts were very expensive, and in most cases neither the monasteries themselves nor the donors who ordered the copying of a text as a “good work” could afford to produce complete copies of lengthy texts. Most Tun-huang scriptures are incomplete because piety had its limits; the donors mostly only provided single rolls, or even single sections. In this way, the monasteries had to “scrape their libraries together” by collecting parts of texts; monastic libraries therefore appear to have suffered from both extreme duplication and structural gaps. The several “lists of incomplete scriptures” (ch’üeh-ching mu, ch’ien tsang-ching mu) are not the result of neglect or theft but of the method of acquisition itself. Professional copyists were attached to the monastery; they probably produced manuscripts by order of both the monastery and outside donors. One list of copyists attached to the Chin-kuang-ming Monastery (S 2711, Chinkuang-ming ssu hsieh ching jen-ming) shows a staff of no less than fifty-five persons, both monks and laymen (Fig. 2.13). It is interesting to note that of the twenty-seven lay copyists ten are surnamed Chang—apparently they were members of a family specialized in this trade. Circulation of Buddhist texts outside the monastery is another topic about which I can speak only in general terms because specific information, at least 84  T 2035 Fo-tsu t’ung-chi, 39:365b; cf. also T 2051 T’ang hu fa sha-men Fa-lin pieh-chuan, 2:204a.

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figure 2.11

A fragment of the inventory to the San-chieh monastery library. (S 3624)

figure 2.12

A list of additions to the inventory of the San-chieh monastery library. (P 3010)

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Copyists attached to the Chin-kuang-ming Monastery. (S 2711)

for T’ang times, is lacking. The spread of at least certain popular texts among the lay public must have been stimulated by the common Mahāyāna belief that the pious recital of scriptures is an act of faith with positive karmic consequences. The stereotyped passages, found in many Mahāyāna sūtras, list the ways in which a believer can show his piety toward the scripture in question, very often including “reading aloud” (nien) and “chanting” (sung), and in later times literate lay believers certainly did so, either individually or collectively. I must, therefore, assume that also in T’ang times Buddhist texts spread outside the monastery and that in this way Buddhism must have contributed to literacy, or rather to the practice of reading. However, the level of literacy was no doubt very low and scriptures did not necessarily have to be read: the text in itself was a sacred object. This “amulet” function is of course even more evident in the innumerable magic formulas (mantra), short tracts, and inscribed pictures that were produced in great quantities. Mainly in this sector did the technique of printing have its greatest impact. Paul W. Kroll - 978-90-04-38020-2 Downloaded from Brill.com11/15/2020 06:09:18AM via San Francisco State University

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The art of printing, undoubtedly the most momentous Buddhist contribution to the spread of literacy (and hence, indirectly, to education), primarily allowed mass-production of texts for the lay public. However, it is a remarkable fact that the practice of printing Buddhist texts, in spite of its obvious advantages, spread very slowly. In the Tun-huang cache (closed at the beginning of the eleventh century) the number of printed texts is almost negligible: of the more than eight thousand items in the Stein collection only twenty are printed, and the published part of the catalogue of the Pelliot collection (one thousand items) only mentions two. I must conclude that even after at least a quarter of a millennium the role of the art of printing in the production and spread of Buddhist texts still was absolutely marginal. The extreme scarcity of printed items in the Tun-huang collections—mostly short texts and formulas—shows that the new technique was still in its infant state and that in the period covered by this chapter its influence must have been minimal. Conclusions From my discussion of Buddhism and education, I would draw a number of conclusions. In “Buddhist education” the whole complex of study and teaching was, by definition, aimed at religious instruction; education, as practiced by the saṅgha, was subordinated to the religious message. In a certain sense it was thereby limited in its scope. On the other hand, however, it was directed to all people, without distinction of age, class, or sex. Because the message was intended “for the benefit of all beings,” the ideal of religious instruction was, in principle, universal. One central element in religious training was scriptural study and the spread of sacred texts. Countless passages in Mahāyāna sūtras extol the merits of persons, male and female alike (shan nan-tzu shan nü-jen, the equivalent of our “brothers and sisters”), who read, recited, studied, and copied the scriptures. In China, the ideal of scriptural study was reinforced by the influence of the Confucian concept of “recruitment of talent”; its most characteristic expression was the development of clerical examinations under the T’ang. In this way, education within the saṅgha, and especially textual memorization and study, came to contain an element of compulsoriness and competition that must have raised the educational level of the saṅgha as a whole. In this way, the training of the monk (about nuns almost nothing is known) in China could develop into a religious educational system in its own right. In the fourth century a small vanguard of “scholar-monks” developed who were the bearers of the great tradition of Chinese Buddhism; in the course of the sixth century this top layer within the clergy developed into a secondary Paul W. Kroll - 978-90-04-38020-2 Downloaded from Brill.com11/15/2020 06:09:18AM via San Francisco State University

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elite, an “alternative intelligentsia.” However, it remained a tiny minority within the saṅgha. For the average monk, training led to a modest level of literary skill based on the memorization of some popular scriptures, notably the Lotus sūtra. In the case of young postulants or novices, this was preceded by training in elementary literacy. But even so, this educational level must have been superior to that of the general population. Inside the monastery monks also received some training in secular literature, probably because it was considered indispensible in their relations with the outer world. The materials again suggest a very modest program, with emphasis on the most elementary texts. In late T’ang times, Buddhist monasteries engaged in some kind of external education, at the grass-roots level, probably as the result of a fusion between the semimonastic postulants’ training and the local community schools (hsiang-hsüeh). The production and spread of religious texts must also have contributed to the lay public’s level of literacy, but owing to the scarcity of information it is unknown to what extent. The process was no doubt much accelerated by the use of printing, but in the tenth century the influence of this technique was still marginal. Like other universal religions, Buddhism potentially is able to play a dominating role in education; in “Buddhist countries” like Thailand and Burma it has fully developed that potentiality. In medieval China, environmental and cultural factors prevented it from doing so. The main inhibiting factor was the dominance of the Confucian concept of education. In the hypothetical case that Confucian education strictly limited itself to the training of an elite of administrators, it is conceivable that Buddhism would have developed an educational system of its own. But, as I remarked in the beginning, the Confucian ideal of “moral transformation” was by no means limited to the “selection of talent” and the formation of a top layer of scholar-officials. Confucianism had its own brand of moral “education for the masses,” in which, in principle, the saṅgha had no role to play. However, materials show that the saṅgha as an alternative intelligentsia with a certain intellectual status and a certain degree of literacy education did manage to play a role through informal channels and at the grass-roots level. In the late T’ang, even more lay students were attracted to Buddhist monasteries for secular studies. Judging from the number of “hsüeh-shih-lang documents” from Tun-huang and considering the fact that probably only a tiny fraction of such materials has been preserved, we must conclude that in early Sung times many thousands of people (all over China, as is shown by the data collected by Yen Keng-wang) had received at least part of their education in

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monastic surroundings. It is quite possible that in that world of “parochial schools” (as they are called by Victor Mair), where the young students were confronted with both the Confucian and the Buddhist traditions, the study of the Classics was more open, less tradition-bound, and less orthodox than in the official schools where Confucianism was encapsulated, so to speak, within its own universe. In this way, at a social level far below that of the master-minds of Neo-Confucianism, Buddhism may have contributed to breaking down the barriers of Confucian orthodoxy: in its humble and inconspicuous way, it may have created a space in which Neo-Confucianism eventually could operate.

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Imperial Patronage in the Formation of T’ang Buddhism Stanley Weinstein It is customary to say that Buddhism in China reached its apogee under the T’ang dynasty. Despite the widespread acceptance of this generalization, when we reexamine the position of Buddhism under the T’ang, at least insofar as church-state relations are concerned, the T’ang was anything but an “apogee” or “golden age” in the history of Chinese Buddhism. Not only did Buddhism during the Hui-ch’ang period (841–47) suffer the harshest persecution that it had ever experienced, one so severe that its subsequent development was permanently affected, but throughout much of the T’ang the prevailing attitude in court circles was essentially negative. Compared with the emperors of the Southern Dynasties, the early T’ang rulers generally took a lukewarm attitude toward the Buddhist religion. They felt a special affinity with Taoism because they bore the same family name, Li, as did Lao-tzu, its legendary founder whom they revered as their ancestor.1 Kao-tsu, the first emperor of the T’ang, was sharply critical of the Buddhists and actively sought to restrict the power and wealth of the temples and monasteries. In the year 625, some seven years after ascending the throne, he issued an edict in which he declared that Taoism and Confucianism constituted the foundations of the empire, whereas Buddhism was of foreign origin. He decreed, therefore, that Taoism should be accorded first place in order of precedence; Confucianism, second place; and Buddhism, last place.2 The following year he issued another decree in which he denounced the corruption within the Buddhist church and called for a severe reduction in the number of temples.

Source: “Imperial Patronage in the Formation of T’ang Buddhism,” in Arthur F. Wright and Denis Twitchett (eds.), Perspectives on the T’ang, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1973, 266–306. 1  On the pro-Taoist sentiments of the T’ang emperors see Yūki Reimon, “Shotō bukkyō no shisōshiteki mujun to kokka kenryoku to no kōsaku” [Contradictions in the history of Buddhist thought the in early T’ang and ideological involvements with the state], Tōyō Bunka Kenkyūjo kiyō 25 (1961): 8–14. 2  Tao-hsüan, Chi ku-chin fo-tao lun-heng 3, 52.381a.

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The capital region was to have no more than three temples, and each province, no more than one temple.3 This basically cautious attitude was continued by Kao-tsu’s son, T’ai-tsung.4 We find, for example, that in the year 637 T’ai-tsung issued an edict which, while recognizing that Taoism and Buddhism ultimately shared the same ideal, declared that the former was more suitable for China and hence its priests should be accorded precedence over Buddhist monks.5 Elsewhere in the edict he repeated his father’s view that the imperial family is descended from Laotzu. A Buddhist monk, Chih-shih, who repeatedly denounced the emperor’s pro-Taoist stance, was ordered by T’ai-tsung to be publicly whipped at court and then exiled.6 The long-standing controversy as to whether monks should recognize their social obligations by paying homage to their parents as well as to the emperor was reopened in 662.7 Some five years earlier Kao-tsung, the third T’ang emperor, had issued a decree forbidding parents from doing obeisance before a son who had become a monk.8 Now Kao-tsung proposed taking the matter a step further by requiring monks and nuns to render homage both to their parents and to the ruler.9 The clergy, which, especially in South China, had long been exempt from this requirement, reacted quickly to the threatened loss of one of its most cherished prerogatives and in a matter of days succeeded, with support from the mother of Empress Wu, in mobilizing the opinion of prominent laymen and monks against the new proposals,10 thereby forcing the emperor to withdraw them.11 But the Buddhist victory was short-lived, for fifty-two years 3  The text of the edict is given in CTS (K’ai-ming ed.) 1.3066a. 4  For an account of T’ai-tsung’s changing attitudes toward Buddhism see the paper by Arthur F. Wright in this volume. 5  An abridged version of the edict is included in Tao-hsüan’s Kuang-hung-ming-chi 25, 52.283c. 6  FTTC 39, 49.364c. 7  For a detailed study see Michihata Ryōshō, Tōdai bukkyōshi no kenkyū [Studies in the history of T’ang Buddhism] (Kyoto, 1957), pp. 335–57. 8  FTTC 39, 49.367a. 9  The text of the edict is included in Yen-tsung’s Chi sha-men pu ying pai su teng shih 3, 52. 455a–b. 10  The Chi sha-men pu ying pai su teng shih, 52.455b–464c, contains thirty-two documents opposing Kao-tsung’s proposal. 11  In an edict dated the eighth day of the sixth month of the year 662 Kao-tsung exempted monks from the obligation of doing obeisance to the emperor. He insisted, however, in the same edict that they must kneel before their parents as a token of respect. For the text of the edict see the Kuang-hung-ming-chi 25, 52.289c–290a. Clerical opposition to this

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later, in 714, Hsüan-tsung issued an edict decreeing that Buddhist and Taoist monks and nuns would henceforth be required to do obeisance before their parents.12 If the word apogee is to be used with reference to Buddhism under the T’ang, it should be understood that it does not apply to the overall status of the church vis-à-vis the state. The church could claim more enthusiastic devotees among the rulers of the Northern Wei or the Southern Dynasties than it could show among the early T’ang emperors, none of whom could match the sincere piety and devotion of, say, Emperor Wu of the Liang. Although the T’ang rulers clearly established the supremacy of the state over the church and, in general, showed their preference for Taoism, they actively sought an accommodation with Buddhism on their own terms. Each of the early T’ang emperors, in spite of attempts to exercise control over the church, contributed to the founding of new temples, had sutras chanted at court, arranged for the ordination of monks, heard lectures on scripture, and sponsored masses for the dead. Such acts of piety were, of course, commonplace under the preceding dynasties, the rulers of which were usually devout Buddhists. With the early T’ang emperors, however, we get the impression that these public displays of devotion were carried out, not so much to satisfy their own religious yearnings in the direction of Buddhism, as for political expediency.13 As the popular reaction to the suppression of Buddhism by the Northern Chou in 574 had shown, Buddhism had gained devoted followers in the various strata of Chinese society and hence was a force to be reckoned with. Its power and organization were such that when Kao-tsung, as we have seen, prematurely attempted to withdraw some of the privileges of the church, he was forced to beat a hasty retreat. The early T’ang emperors were therefore circumspect in matters concerned with the church. That Buddhism eventually suffered the harshest persecution in its history toward the end of the T’ang is hardly coincidental. Things had been pointing in this direction since the establishment of the dynasty.14 latter requirement persisted, ultimately forcing Kao-tsung to retreat on this point as well (see the biography of Wei-hsiu in the SKSC 17, 50.812b. 12   C TS 8.3081b. 13  Yūki, “Shotō bukkyō,” pp. 18–19; see also Tsukamoto Zenryū, Nisshi bukkyō kōshōshi kenkyū [Studies in the history of the relations between Chinese and Japanese Buddhism] (Tokyo, 1944), p. 23. 14  In the year 714 twelve thousand monks were said to have been laicized. Sometime later in the K’ai-yüan period another thirty thousand monks were defrocked. See Kenneth Ch’en, “The Hui-ch’ang Suppression of Buddhism,” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 19 (1956): 79.

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Although the political position of the Buddhist church was unstable under the T’ang, on the doctrinal side Buddhism reached its highest level of development under this dynasty. During the 170-odd years between the founding of the Sui in 581 and the outbreak of the An Lu-shan Rebellion in 755, no less than eight schools of Buddhism appeared. Three of these—the T’ien-t’ai, the Fa-hsiang, and the Hua-yen—can be characterized as basically philosophical in their outlook, each with a highly complex metaphysical system. In addition to these three philosophical schools there arose four other schools—the Three Stages (San-chieh), the Pure Land (Ching-t’u), the Ch’an, and the Esoteric (Mi)—which may be loosely termed “religious schools,” since they placed primary emphasis upon religious practices that led directly to the attainment of enlightenment, for example, the universal worship of all Buddhas in the Three Stages school, the invocation of the name of Amitābha Buddha (O-mi-t’o fo) in the Pure Land school, meditation in the Ch’an school, and the use of mystical hand signs and incantations in the Esoteric school. The Disciplinary school (Lü), which was systematized by Tao-hsüan (596–667) in the early T’ang, concerned itself primarily with ordination procedures, the interpretation of the rules governing the behavior of monks and the administration of monasteries and hence does not fit into either of the two categories given above. Chinese Buddhism as it is practiced today by both monks and laymen represents a synthesis of the T’ang religious schools, exclusive of the Three Stages school, which was suppressed by the state during the T’ang. It is interesting to note that the founders of these popular schools, which assumed definitive shape under the T’ang and subsequently emerged as the mainstream of devotional Buddhism in China, received little support from the early T’ang emperors, whereas the founders of the philosophical schools all enjoyed imperial patronage, as we shall see below. Of the religious schools only the Esoteric school could claim any substantial degree of imperial sponsorship in its formative years. Emperor Hsüan-tsung, who showed great interest in Taoist magic, provided support for, and maintained close contact with, a number of Tāntric monks who arrived in Ch’ang-an and Loyang during his reign (712–56), presumably in the hope that the Esoteric texts that they were translating and expounding would provide additional knowledge that might be of use in the performance of Taoist magical rites.15 Although Esoteric ritual ultimately

15  For Hsüan-tsung’s involvement with the Tāntric master Pu-k’ung, see Yamazaki Hiroshi, Zuitō bukkyōshi no kenkyū [Studies in the history of Buddhism under the Sui and T’ang] (Kyoto, 1967), pp. 239–50.

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became an integral part of Chinese Buddhist practice,16 Esoteric Buddhism itself was never systematized in China as it had been in Japan. It might also be mentioned here that despite the fact that several Ch’an monks were invited to the court by Empress Wu, which might suggest some degree of imperial patronage, these monks all belonged to the branch of Ch’an technically known as “Northern Ch’an,” which is different from that of the famous Ch’an masters who flourished during the T’ang and Sung dynasties. It is significant that even though contemporary Ch’an is divided into many branches, none claims descent from the imperially patronized Northern Ch’an. Traditionally, the three T’ang philosophical schools have been regarded as the fruition of different exegetical lines that originated in the Nan-pei-ch’ao.17 Thus the T’ien-t’ai school, which is based on Chih-i’s interpretation of the Lotus Sūtra, is seen as an elaboration and systematization of the Nieh-p’an school (an exegetical school devoted to the study of the Mahāyānist Mahāparinirvāṇa Sūtra) which flourished during the fifth and sixth centuries; the Fa-hsiang school, which represents the Dharmapāla branch of Indian Yogācāra Buddhism, is viewed as a continuation of the She-lun school, which was based on Paramārtha’s translation of the Yogācāra text, Mahāyāna-saṃgraha, completed in 563; and the Hua-yen (the school based on a systematic interpretation of the Avataṃsaka Sūtra) is held to be a successor to the Ti-lun, an early sixth-century school primarily concerned with the study of Vasubandhu’s commentary (called Ti-lun in Chinese) on the Daśabhūmika Sūtra. It would indeed be a curious coincidence, however, if these three pre-T’ang schools had each reached maturity within the relatively short span of one hundred years after the establishment of the Sui. The reasons for the emergence of these three philosophical schools in such rapid succession cannot be properly understood as long as we limit ourselves to purely doctrinal considerations. From the orthodox point of view, Chih-i, the de facto founder of the T’ien-t’ai, Hsüantsang, the translator of the Fa-hsiang scripture, and Fa-tsang, the systematizer of the Hua-yen, each succeeded in formulating a major school of thought on the basis of his own religious intuition and philosophical insight. While in no way intending to minimize their originality, we hope to show that certain political factors influenced the doctrines formulated by these men and had a direct

16  See, for example, the account of the masses for the dead in Holmes Welch, The Practice of Chinese Buddhism (Cambridge, Mass., 1967), pp. 185–97. 17  From the standpoint of the history of Buddhist thought, the T’ien-t’ai school, which originated under the Sui, has all the characteristics of a “T’ang” school and hence must be so classified, as we shall explain below.

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bearing upon the sequence in which their schools emerged as well as upon the subsequent vicissitudes of these schools. The first of the philosophical schools to appear was the T’ien-t’ai, a distinctively Chinese-type school, which in many respects signified a great advance over the earlier, more Indian types of Buddhism in China. Yet despite the ardent patronage of the two Sui emperors and the enthusiastic support of many prominent courtiers and monks, the T’ien-t’ai dropped almost completely from view during the seventh century only to be resuscitated in the middle of the eighth century. What is surprising is that following the decline of the T’ien-t’ai at the beginning of the T’ang dynasty, the focus of Buddhist scholarship in the T’ang capitals, Ch’ang-an and Loyang, shifted to the rigidly Indian Fa-hsiang school. From a doctrinal point of view, T’ien-t’ai, with its advocacy of the ultimate enlightenment of all sentient beings, represented a far more developed type of Mahāyāna than did the Fa-hsiang with its doctrine of eternal damnation for one hapless group of sentient beings. Although Chinese monks in the T’ang already had sufficient understanding of Buddhism to realize that the Fa-hsiang, in purely doctrinal terms, constituted a step backward in the evolution of Buddhist thought, they were unable to prevent the Fa-hsiang from dominating the intellectual centers of Buddhist scholarship in the capitals during the second half of the seventh century. When the Fa-hsiang gave way to a more Chinese form of Buddhism, as was inevitable, it was not, as one might have expected, to the T’ien-t’ai which it had supplanted, but to the newly established Hua-yen, which, like the T’ien-t’ai and Fa-hsiang before it, enjoyed favor at the court until it too was superseded by a new school—the Esoteric Buddhism introduced by Śubhakarasiṃha and Vajrabodhi early in the reign of Hsüan-tsung. Most of these Sui and T’ang schools had their precursors in the period that begins with the arrival of the great translator, Kumārajīva, in 401 and ends with the founding of the Sui in 581. This period saw the emergence of six exegetical schools: the San-lun, which expounded the philosophy of Nāgārjuna; the Ch’eng-shih, which was based on an obscure Indian treatise, possibly entitled Tattvasiddhi in Sanskrit; the P’i-t’an, which was devoted to the study of the Sarvāstivāda Abhidharma; and the aforementioned Nieh-p’an, Ti-lun, and She-lun schools. Although each of these schools was based upon a different text or group of texts, they shared a number of characteristics that set them apart from the T’ang schools. First, each of the pre-T’ang schools bears the name of either a particular text or a closely related group of texts, while each of the T’ang schools either indicates in its name the central doctrine of the school, for example, Fa-hsiang (“Dharma aspect”), Ching-t’u (“Pure Land”), Ch’an (“Meditation”), Mi (“Esotericism”), or adopts a proper name associated

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with the founder, for example, T’ien-t’ai. The Hua-yen school, named after the Hua-yen-ching,18 and the Disciplinary school (Lü-tsung), named after the Vinaya (Lü), would seem to be the only exceptions. Yet even in these two cases we find alternate names in common use, the former being popularly called the Hsien-shou school, and the latter, the Nan-shan school.19 Hsien-shou was the honorific name conferred by Empress Wu on Fa-tsang, the systematizer of the Hua-yen school, while Nan-shan, the alternate name of the Disciplinary school, is an abridgment of Chung-nan-shan, the mountains situated south of Ch’ang-an where Tao-hsüan, the de facto founder of the Disciplinary school, spent much of his life. It should be observed that none of the pre-T’ang schools has such an alternate “Chinese” name. Another distinguishing feature of these pre-T’ang schools is that they all centered around the Chinese translation of a specific Indian text or group of texts and, furthermore, that with the exception of the Nieh-p’an school,20 the text that served as the basic scripture always belonged to the division of the canon containing the philosophical treatises, that is, the so-called lun-tsang, and not to the sutra division (ching-tsang), which contrasts sharply with the practice of the T’ang schools. The T’ien-t’ai, for example, takes the Lotus Sūtra21 as its fundamental scripture, the Pure Land bases itself upon three or four “Amitāyus” sutras, and the Esoteric school draws upon a variety of texts which, while classified as tantras in India and Tibet, are regarded as sutras in East Asian Buddhism. The Hua-yen school, as we have already seen, is based upon the sutra of the same name. Only the Disciplinary school does not have a sutra as its fundamental scripture. The main scholarly concern of the monks of the six pre-T’ang schools was directed toward the exegesis of a basic scripture. The Kao-seng-chuan [Biographies of eminent monks] and the Hsü-kao-seng-chuan [Supplement to the biographies of eminent monks] give us a comprehensive picture of the intense exegetical work carried on during the fifth and sixth centuries. Of the 18  The full title of this sutra, which is traditionally believed to have been preached immediately after the enlightenment of the Buddha, is Ta-fang-kuang fo hua-yen-ching (Buddhāvataṃsaka-mahāvaipulya-sūtra). It exists in two Chinese translations (TD nos. 278 and 279), the former completed in the year 420 and the latter in 699. 19  See, for example, the treatment of these schools in the FTTC 29, 49.292c and 296c. 20  The Nieh-p’an school was based on a Mahāyāna sutra called Ta-pan-nieh-p’an-ching (Mahāparinirvāṇa-sūtra), T no. 374, translated into Chinese by Dharmakṣema in the year 421. This sutra, which claims to be the last discourse of the Buddha, is completely different in content from the Hinayānist sutra with the same name and pretensions. 21  I.e. the Miao-fa lien-hua-ching (Saddharma-puṇḍarīka-sūtra) [Lotus of the True Law], which exists in three Chinese translations (T nos. 262, 263, and 264).

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257 biographies included in the former, no less than 101 biographies are those of exegetes (i-chieh-seng). Although the overwhelming proportion of the commentaries produced during this period has been lost, a number of representative works of the fifth and sixth centuries fortunately survive, from which we can get a general idea of the type of exegesis undertaken at this time and how it differs from that of the T’ang schools. In general terms, the most distinctive feature of pre-T’ang exegesis, when compared with that of the T’ang schools, is the conscious effort of the Chinese commentator to interpret a text in a fashion which he believes to be faithful to the original intent of its author. When viewed from the standpoint of the Indian text, the commentary may be, and in fact often is, wide of the mark. Interpretations are frequently made which show that the commentator failed to grasp the meaning of the original. But the significant thing is that his intention was to interpret the text faithfully. That he often did not do so may be attributed to his inability to consult the text in the original language or to the linguistic ambiguity of the Chinese translation he was using. We get a very different impression, however, when we read the works of such leading Sui and T’ang commentators as Chih-i and Fa-tsang, who clearly felt themselves free to interpret the sutras of their schools on the basis of their own religious experience, often showing no concern whether a particular interpretation was at all feasible from the standpoint of the original text. The T’ang schools, while nominally basing themselves on a particular Indian canonical work, in fact developed highly systematized dogmas that derived their authority from the writings of Chinese patriarchs (tsu). The Indian canonical works, termed “fundamental scriptures” (so-i ching), were often little more than pegs to which the patriarchs could attach their own ideas. A literal reading of the Lotus Sūtra or the Hua-yen-ching would hardly lead an impartial commentator to make the types of interpretations that are found in the writings of Chih-i and Fa-tsang. In the older schools of the fifth and sixth centuries the translator of the basic scripture occupied a prominent place in the patriarchal lineage, and his interpretations were treated with a respect bordering on veneration. In the case of the T’ang schools, however, translators were uniformly excluded from the list of patriarchs, which was limited to Chinese monks. Thus Kuan-ting (561–632), the editor of Chih-i’s major works, recognized Huiwen, who lived under the Northern Ch’i, as the first Chinese patriarch,22 but omitted Kumārajīva, the translator of the Lotus, from the patriarchal succession. Similarly the Chinese monk Fa-shun (557–640) is held to be the first patriarch of the Hua-yen,23 while the translator Buddhabhadra is excluded from the 22   Mo-ho chih-kuan 1, T 46.1b. 23   F TTC 29, T 49.292c.

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patriarchal lineage. Even in the case of so eminent a translator as Hsüan-tsang, we find that the Fa-hsiang school, whose treatises he rendered into Chinese, does not regard him as a patriarch. Rather it is his disciple, Tz’u-en, the author of two major commentaries on the Ch’eng-wei-shih-lun, who is venerated as the founder and first patriarch.24 With the pre-T’ang schools there is not a single instance of a Chinese monk being raised to such an exalted status. In the period of exegesis, that is to say, in the fifth and sixth centuries, the Buddhist church, despite the extensive support it received from devout imperial and aristocratic patrons, had not yet succeeded in transforming Indian Buddhism into a Chinese religion or in adapting it sufficiently to the Chinese situation. If in the fourth century Chinese monks had as yet failed to distinguish adequately between Buddhist concepts and the ideas of post-Han NeoTaoism, in the fifth and sixth centuries they still had not been able to produce from the rapidly expanding corpus of Buddhist literature a religious and philosophical system that could satisfy the diverse and often conflicting needs of the different strata of Chinese society. In formal terms Buddhism was still primarily a monastic system that had little room for the layman who was unwilling or unable to break his ties with the mundane world. The primary role of the layman, at least insofar as the monastic community was concerned, was that of a dānapati (shih-chu) or lay supporter. Gifts of money, cloth, grain, or land were of course necessary for the sustenance of the monastic community, which assured its lay supporters that such acts of pious charity would generate great merit and lead to a blissful reward. Although by the end of the sixth century hundreds of sutras and treatises had already been translated and a large number of commentaries written, there was a growing feeling among a number of leading monks that no real progress was being made toward the realization of the ultimate goal of Buddhism—the attainment of enlightenment. The church was rich in worldly goods and had a large following, but it was not succeeding in its own terms as a religion. One need only read the Ssu Ta-shih li-shih yüan-wen [The vows of the master (Hui-) ssu],25 an extremely interesting document written in 558, which speaks in detail of the wickedness of the monks and the general decline of religious morality. Hui-ssu was probably the first man to emphasize the concept of mo-fa (“the doctrine for the Final Period”), which asserted that the world had now entered the period of degeneration, a period in which the traditional Indian style morality of the exegetical schools would have no relevance. This idea, clearly enunciated by Hui-ssu, who was the teacher of Chih-i, the 24  Nien-ch’ang, Fo-tsu li-tai t’ung-tsai 12, T 49.583c. 25   T 46.786b–792b.

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founder of the T’ien-t’ai school, became central to the Pure Land and Three Stages schools. Some monks began to feel that Buddhism could become meaningful to the Chinese of their day only if it took account of the degenerate conditions inevitably prevailing in the mo-fa period. As the monk Tao-ch’o (died 645) observed in his An-lo-chi [Anthology on Pure Land]: “In the period of degeneration in which we are now living countless sentient beings are devoting themselves to religious practices and cultivating the Way, and yet not a single one of them has attained enlightenment.”26 To Tao-ch’o the reasons for this anomaly were straightforward: When a particular teaching within Buddhism is in harmony with both the needs of the period and the intellectual capacity of the men for whom it is intended, it is easy both to practice this teaching and to attain enlightenment. When, however, the intellectual capacity of the devotee, the teaching of the Buddha, and the needs of the period are in conflict with each other, it is impossible either to practice the teaching or to attain enlightenment.27 The six exegetical schools, in their philosophical concepts, their monastic organization, and their religious practices, patterned themselves after what were conceived to be Indian models as revealed in the scriptures. It was only under the succeeding Sui and T’ang dynasties that Buddhism matured so as to become truly Chinese in both its philosophical expression and its religious aspirations.

The T’ien-T’ai School

As we have already noted, the first of the new, “Chinese” schools to appear was the T’ien-t’ai, founded by Chih-i (538–97). This school, which was characterized by a high degree of syncretism, embodied most of the features that have come to distinguish the “Chinese” Buddhism of the T’ang period from the Buddhism of the preceding period of exegesis: a Chinese patriarchate, emphasis on religious practice, recognition of the possibility of attaining enlightenment in this life, a belief in the ultimate salvation of all sentient beings, and, lastly, a free, openly subjective, interpretation of scripture. If the foundation of the Sui dynasty signified the reunion of a politically divided China, so the emergence of 26   T 47.13c. 27   T 47.4a.

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the T’ien-t’ai represented the synthesis of the many disparate tendencies that constituted the Buddhism of the fifth and sixth centuries. Chih-i, whose lay name was Ch’en Wang-tao, was born in Hua-jung-hsien in Ching-chou (in present-day Hunan) in 538.28 His father, Ch’en Ch’i-tsu, served as an adviser to Hsiao I, the seventh son of Emperor Wu of the Liang dynasty. When Hsiao I ascended the throne in 552 in Chiang-ling as Emperor Yüan, he confererrd a high title29 on Ch’en Ch’i-tsu and enfeoffed him as K’ai-kuo Marquis of I-yang-hsien (in present-day Hunan). But Ch’en Ch’i-tsu’s glory was short-lived. In the year 554 Chiang-ling was sacked by the Western Wei, who promptly murdered the emperor and many of his ranking officials. Chih-i’s parents both died about this time, leaving him free to begin the religious life in which he had already professed great interest. The following year Chih-i, aged seventeen, began his religious training under Fa-hsü at the Kuo-yüan monastery in Hsiang-chou (in present-day Hunan). Wang Lin, a powerful general who had previously been in the service of Hsiao I along with Ch’en Ch’i-tsu, provided the necessary financial support for his late colleague’s son. Chih-i was ordained as a novice (sha-mi) by Fa-hsü, with whom he stayed for about one year, before joining Hui-k’uang, a scholar versed in both Vinaya and Mahāyāna philosophy. After receiving his full ordination under Hui-k’uang in the year 558, Chih-i paid a visit to Mount Ta-hsien in Heng-chou (in present-day Hunan), where he spent twenty days chanting the Lotus and two related sutras, during which time he had a mystical experience that confirmed his faith in the Lotus. Two years later, aged twenty-two,30 Chih-i moved to Mount Ta-su in Kuangchou, where he became a disciple of Hui-ssu. Although Hui-ssu, like Chih-i, was a southerner, he had been strongly influenced by the Buddhism of North China, which placed great emphasis on religious practice, particularly as manifested in meditation and pietism.31 Before proceeding to the north in search of new religious ideas, Hui-ssu had become a devotee of the Lotus Sūtra, which had been one of the most widely read scriptures in the south. His deep attachment to the Lotus, with its message of an eternal Buddha and universal enlightenment, remained with him throughout his life. In the north Hui-ssu studied under a number of scholars, from whom he learned various meditative techniques. On the doctrinal side, 28  The earliest and most reliable biography of Chih-i is the Sui T’ien-t’ai Chih-che pieh-chuan (T no. 2050) compiled by his disciple Kuan-ting. See also the excellent study of Chih-i by Leon Hurvitz in Mélanges chinois et bouddhiques 12 (1963). 29   Shih-ch’ih-chieh san-chi-ch’ang-shih, CTP, T 50.191b. 30  Chan-jan, Chih-kuan fu-hsing chuan-hung-chüeh 1, T 46.142c. 31  The most detailed biography of Hui-ssu is the one included in the HKSC 17, T 50. 562c–564a.

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he was introduced to the Ta-chih-tu-lun, an encyclopedic commentary on the Ta-p’in po-jo-ching [Prajñāpāramitā Sūtra in twenty-five thousand lines] purporting to have been written by Nāgārjuna, the founder of the Mādhyamika school. Although this voluminous work had been translated into Chinese by Kumārajīva in 405, it had been virtually ignored until the early sixth century when northern scholars discovered in it a synthesis of meditational practices and the doctrine of nonsubstantiality. Hui-ssu devoted himself to this northern meditative Buddhism for a number of years before returning to the south in 553 to disseminate these new doctrines.32 Because of the long-standing southern prejudice against the practice of meditation,33 Hui-ssu encountered much hostility after his return. Subjected to frequent harassment and at times even physically assaulted, Hui-ssu decided to retire to the Nan-yüeh mountains, in present-day Hunan, but owing to the unsettled political situation, he was unable to reach his destination until the year 568. In the interval, between 554 and 568, Hui-ssu was active in Kuang-chou, where he made Mount Ta-su his headquarters. Under Hui-ssu’s guidance Chih-i devoted himself to the practice of meditation, which he now applied to the Lotus. Before Chih-i became a pupil of Hui-ssu, his involvement with the Lotus had been, in typical southern fashion, limited to textual exegesis. Hui-ssu enabled him to add a new dimension to his religious life by teaching him, through the techniques of meditation, how to go beyond a mere scholastic interpretation of the text in order to understand its inner meaning. When Chih-i reported to Hui-ssu that he had at last grasped the true significance of the text, his master replied: “It is only you who could have attained such an enlightenment, and only I who could perceive this…. Even though one thousand exegetes were to challenge you, none could plumb the depth of your words.”34 Here we can already detect the independent spirit that is to distinguish the “Chinese” Buddhism of the T’ang from the earlier, Indiacentered Buddhism of the Nan-pei-ch’ao. Hui-ssu was convinced that in Chih-i he had found a true successor, one who would be able to propagate in the south the meditative techniques that Hui-ssu had learned in the north. In 568 he instructed Chih-i to proceed to the capital of the Ch’en state, Chin-ling (the modern Nanking), to proclaim the new doctrines. Hui-ssu himself declined to 32  Mochizuki Shinkō, Bukkyō daijiten [Encyclopedia of Buddhism] (Tokyo, 1933), 1.274c. 33  Ōchō Enichi has written a fascinating study of the conflict between southern exegesis and northern meditation entitled Chūgoku nambokuchō jidai no bukkyō gakufū [Attitudes toward the study of Buddhism in the Nan-pei-ch’ao], which is included in his Chūgoku bukkyō no kenkyū [Studies in Chinese Buddhism] (Kyoto, 1958), pp. 256–89. 34   C TP, T 50.192a.

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go to the capital insisting that the time had come for his long-awaited retreat to the Nan-yüeh mountains. That he dispatched his disciple Chih-i to carry out the important mission of propagating the Dharma in the acknowledged center of southern Buddhism rather than undertaking this task himself shows his shrewd reading of the situation, as indicated by his words to Chih-i: “If you establish yourself in [the capital of] the state of Ch’en, our doctrine will surely flourish because of your connections there!”35 When Chih-i arrived in Chin-ling in 568, his father had been dead for some fourteen years, while his father’s erstwhile colleague, the founder of the Ch’en dynasty, Ch’en Pa-hsien, had been dead some nine years. Yet many family friends, now in positions of authority, were still around to give a sympathetic hearing to the new doctrines espoused by the thirty-year-old Chih-i. During Chih-i’s sojourn in Chin-ling between 568 and 575, the throne was occupied by Emperor Hsüan (reigned 568–82), a nephew of Ch’en Pa-hsien. Emperor Hsüan had spent his youth in Chiang-ling in the service of Hsiao I,36 and his son and successor Shu-pao, posthumously called Hou-chu (“The Last Ruler”), had been born there in 553. Thus the Ch’en imperial family, whose surname Chih-i shared, all had close links with the group surrounding Hsiao I in Chiang-ling in the early 550s, the same group in which Chih-i’s father had held a prominent position. To the Ch’en imperial family as well as to many powerful bureaucrats in Chin-ling, Chih-i was no obscure purveyor of a new gospel, but the son of an esteemed, now deceased, colleague. In Chin-ling Chih-i took up residence at the famous Wa-kuan monastery, where he attracted a large following. It is recorded that several southern monks who were impressed by his ideas promptly “renounced exegesis to devote themselves to meditation.”37 Sometime after his arrival in Chin-ling it seems likely that Chih-i administered the “bodhisattva precepts” to a number of prominent laymen, among whom was Shen Chün-li,38 whose daughter had been chosen as a concubine for the crown prince in 570. Both Shen Chün-li and his father, Shen Hsün, had been in the entourage of Hsiao I in Chiang-ling and hence can be presumed to have been on friendly terms with Chih-i’s father. 35   H KSC 17, T 50.564b. 36   Ch’en-shu (K’ai-ming ed.) 5.1857a. 37   C TP, T 50.192b. 38  This supposition is based upon Shen Chün-li’s letter to Chih-i requesting him to lecture on the title of the Lotus, in which he describes himself as “your disciple in the bodhisattva precepts” (KCPL doc. no. 18, T 46.801a). Since Shen Chün-li died in 573, Chih-i must have administered the precepts before that date. Shen’s biography is given in the Ch’en-shu 23. 1877c–d and the Nan-shih 68.2704d–2705a.

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In response to a request from Shen Chün-li, Chih-i gave a series of lectures in 569 on the religious significance of the title of the Lotus,39 which apparently had a great impact on the Chin-ling Buddhist community. These lectures were attended by some of the most eminent members of the Ch’en court,40 which was recessed by imperial command for one day to mark the occasion. Since the text of these lectures has not been preserved, it is not possible to know what Chih-i’s view of the Lotus was at this time; but judging from his early works, it is probably safe to assume that his position was still close to that of Hui-ssu, that is, primarily concerned with the practice of meditation. The three works that survive from this period of residence in Chin-ling are all concerned with meditative practices and contain none of the important points of doctrine that came to distinguish the T’ien-t’ai system.41 When, in the year 575, Chih-i announced his intention of leaving the Ch’en capital for the T’ien-t’ai mountains, his supporters were visibly shaken. Emperor Hsüan appealed to him not to ignore the salvation of his followers in the capital,42 and Hsü Ling, a high-ranking official who had been a member of the Chiang-ling group with Chih-i’s father, pleaded tearfully with Chih-i to remain.43 Chih-i would not be dissuaded and departed with a small group of close disciples for T’ien-t’ai, where he arrived later in the same year. Although there were no major temples in the T’ien-t’ai mountains at this time, a number of fairly well known monks who were themselves devotees of the Lotus had resided here in the past, which may be the reason why Chih-i chose this site. Shortly after reaching his destination, Chih-i ascended Hua-ting peak and here had the deep mystical experience that formed the basis of his subsequent religious life. The monastic community that he established on Fo-lung, another of the T’ien-t’ai peaks, at first was hard pressed financially, but its 39   F TTC 6, T 49.181c. CTP does not specify the year. 40  In addition to Hsü Ling, Wang Ku, and Mao Hsi, whose biographies are summarized by Hurvitz, Mélanges chinois et bouddhiques, p. 111, two other ranking officials, K’ung Huan and Chou Hung-cheng, are listed in the CTP, T 50.192c as being present at the lectures. The biography of the latter is contained in the Ch’en-shu 24.1878b and the Nan-shih 34.2631a. Virtually all of the prominent men present at Chih-i’s lectures had been with Hsiao I at Chiang-ling. 41  The three works that survive from his Chin-ling period are the Shih ch’an-po-lo-mi tz’uti fa-men (T no. 1916), the Fang-teng san-mei hsing-fa (T no. 1940), and the Fa-hua sanmei ch’an-i (T no. 1941). For a critical analysis of the works attributed to Chih-i, see Satō Tetsuei, Tendai Daishi no kenkyū [A study of the great master T’ien-t’ai] (Kyoto, 1961), especially pp. 49–50. 42   KCPL 1, doc. 8, T 46.799a. 43   C TP T 50.193a.

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plight was soon alleviated, thanks to Chih-i’s court connections, when, in the second month of the year 577, Emperor Hsüan ordered part of the taxes levied on Shih-feng-hsien (Chekiang) to be used for the support of the T’ien-t’ai community.44 The following year Emperor Hsüan granted the name Hsiuch’an-ssu to the temple that Chih-i was then building. During Chih-i’s first prolonged stay in the T’ien-t’ai mountains, which lasted from 575 to 585, he received donations from at least two laymen45 and acquired a devout supporter in the person of Ch’en Po-chih, who was the twelfth son of Emperor Wen (reigned 559–66) and a nephew of Emperor Hsüan. Ch’en Po-chih’s five surviving letters to Chih-i indicate that he received the bodhisattva precepts from Chih-i, to whom he was deeply attached.46 In 582 Ch’en Shu-pao, upon his father’s death, ascended the Ch’en throne. Apparently anxious to show himself to be no less a patron of Buddhism than his father, Shu-pao made three appeals to Chih-i to return to Chin-ling,47 but each time he was met with a refusal, Chih-i pleading illness. Only after Ch’en Po-chih, Chih-i’s powerful benefactor, interceded at the request of Shu-pao did Chih-i reluctantly agree in 585 to return to the capital, where he received an enthusiastic welcome. We need not detail his activities there—suffice it to say that he once again played an extremely prominent role while maintaining his very close ties with the imperial family, as is evidenced by his administering of the bodhisattva precepts to the crown prince.48 During his stay at the Kuangche monastery in Chin-ling in 587, Chih-i gave his celebrated series of lectures on the Lotus, which were posthumously edited by his disciple Kuan-ting under the title Fa-hua wen-chü.49 While Chih-i was renewing his contacts with the Ch’en court, important changes were taking place on the political scene. Yang Chien, after establishing himself as Emperor Wen of the Sui dynasty in North China in 581, gradually began to turn his attention southward. In 587 he destroyed the buffer state of Later Liang, and the following year he ordered an attack on the state of Ch’en, which was conquered and occupied in the first month of 589, when Yang Kuang, the second son of Emperor Wen, entered Chin-ling. Whatever Chih-i’s personal feelings toward the Ch’en state might have been, he clearly felt no need to go down with the dynasty. As Chin-ling was being fought over by contending 44  The text of Emperor Hsüan’s edict is given in KCPL 1, doc. 9, T 46.799a. 45   C TP, T 50.193b. 46   KCPL 2, doc. 15–17, T 46.800a–801a. 47  The texts of these three appeals are included in KCPL 1, doc. 11, T 46.799b. 48   KCPL 2, doc. 14, T 46.800a. 49  T no. 1718.

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armies, Chih-i apparently decided that this would be an appropriate time to undertake some long-planned pilgrimages to the Nan-yüeh mountains, where his master had spent the last years of his life, and to Lu-shan, one of the great centers of Buddhism since the fourth century. At the beginning of the following year, however, Chih-i received a letter from the victorious Emperor Wen of the Sui, seeking to establish relations with him.50 Although Emperor Wen was no doubt a sincere Buddhist, he was also well aware of the political advantages that would accrue from a close association with the leading cleric of South China. Emperor Wen had succeeded in unifying the empire by force of arms, but as a northerner he had encountered considerable resistance in the south. He no doubt felt that a strong endorsement by Chih-i, who was held in high esteem by the southern aristocracy and clergy, would facilitate the task of bringing about a real unification. When Yang Kuang became governor of Yang-chou (Yang-chou tsung-kuan) toward the end of the year 590, he promptly dispatched a letter to Chih-i inviting him to visit Yang-chou.51 After the customary refusal of three times, Chih-i finally journeyed to Yang-chou, where, in the eleventh month of 591, he formally administered the bodhisattva precepts to Yang Kuang in a splendid ceremony attended by a thousand monks.52 Such was the beginning of the close relationship between Chih-i and his powerful patron, Yang Kuang, which continued until the former’s death in 597. Chih-i stayed in Yang-chou only a few months, perhaps because he found this place too distracting for his religious life. By the summer of 592 Chih-i was once again back in Lu-shan. He then seems to have revisited the Nan-yüeh mountains and other places associated with his deceased master, finally arriving in his native Ching-chou in the twelfth month of 592; there he stayed for two years, during which time he completed his famous systematization of Buddhist doctrine. Shortly after his arrival in Ching-chou, Chih-i undertook the construction of the Yü-ch’üan monastery, which was granted an imperial charter in the seventh month of the year 593 by Emperor Wen.53 It was at this monastery that Chih-i gave his famous lectures on the inner meaning of the Lotus, which his disciple Kuan-ting subsequently edited under the title Fa-hua hsüan-i.54 The following year he expounded his theories of meditation and religious practice, which were later 50  For a summary of the letter see Huryitz, Mélanges chinois et bouddhiques, p. 140. 51   KCPL 2, doc. 24, T 46.803a. 52  For a description of the ceremony sec Yang Kuang’s letter to Chih-i dated the twenty-third day of the eleventh month of the year 591, KCPL 2, doc. 26, T 46.803a. 53   KCPL 2, doc. 44, T 46.806c. 54  T no. 1716.

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edited to form the treatise called Mo-ho chih-kuan.55 These two works, together with the Fa-hua wen-chü mentioned above, constitute the three major texts of the T’ien-t’ai school. While Chih-i was in Ching-chou, Yang Kuang seems to have sent him a number of letters imploring him to return to Yang-chou. Chih-i reluctantly acceded to his patron’s wish and took up residence at one of the larger monasteries in Yang-chou in the early part of 595. In the sixth month of that year Yang Kuang requested Chih-i to prepare a commentary on the Wei-mo-ching (Vimalakīrtinirdeśa-sūtra), a Mahāyāna scripture that elevates a pious layman to a status virtually equal to that of the Buddha, a notion which, no doubt, appealed to Yang Kuang. In his reply Chih-i mentioned that it was his intention to return to the T’ien-t’ai region where he could practice the Way in the quiet of the mountain forests. Yang Kuang tried in vain to dissuade Chih-i from leaving, but Chih-i was so determined that Yang Kuang was finally compelled to allow his departure.56 Once back in the T’ien-t’ai mountains, Chih-i devoted himself to the commentary on the Wei-mo-ching. Yang Kuang on several occasions sent envoys to T’ien-t’ai in an effort to persuade him to return to Yang-chou. Chih-i, who by 597 was ailing seriously, finally agreed to rejoin Yang Kuang and left for Yang-chou with the latter’s envoy, who had arrived in the tenth month of that year. When the group reached Shih-ch’eng,57 Chih-i announced that he was too ill to proceed any further. Sensing that his end was imminent, he divided up his possessions and undertook various religious exercises. One of his last acts before his death on the twenty-fourth day of the eleventh month was to dictate a final letter to Yang Kuang entrusting the Dharma to his care.58 Chih-i’s disciples were well aware of the necessity of maintaining the close contact with the Sui court that their master had established during the last eight years of his life. Within two months after the death of Chih-i, two leading disciples, Kuan-ting and P’u-ming, made the journey to Yang-chou to present Yang Kuang with a copy of their master’s letter, his commentary on the Weimo-ching specially written for Yang Kuang, and various objects intimately associated with Chih-i’s religious life. As might be expected, the meeting between Yang Kuang, the great T’ien-t’ai patron, and Chih-i’s disciples was an emotional 55  T no. 1911. 56   KCPL 2, doc. 49, T 46.807b.; Ibid. 3, doc. 54, T 46.808b. 57  Situated thirty li to the northwest of the present-day Shao-hsing-hsien in Chekiang. See the Chung-kuo ku-chin ti-ming ta-tz’u-tien [Encyclopedia of ancient and modern Chinese place names] (Shanghai, 1930), p. 269b. 58  For a partial translation of this last letter see Hurvitz, Mélanges chinois et bouddhiques, pp. 166–69.

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one, Kuang vowing his continued support for the T’ien-t’ai community. A highranking official was dispatched to the T’ien-t’ai mountains with instructions to arrange for the transfer of rich agricultural land to provide economic support for Chih-i’s followers. Yang Kuang also promised to assist in the construction of the temple on the Fo-lung peak, which Chih-i had first proposed in 595.59 Yang Kuang had originally agreed to act as patron, but little was actually accomplished during Chih-i’s lifetime. When Chih-i reluctantly accepted the invitation from Yang Kuang to return to Yang-chou, he drew up a detailed layout of the proposed temple which, after his death, would serve as the headquarters for his school. When asked by his disciples how resources could be found for the establishment of such a grand temple in the wilderness of the Chekiang mountains, he replied that the temple that he had in mind could be constructed only through the support of the imperial family.60 It is quite understandable, then, that Chih-i, in the last letter to Yang Kuang written on his deathbed, should have appealed for support for this temple, which was given unstintingly. Construction was completed in the year 601, and in 605 Yang Kuang, in accordance with a request from Chih-i’s disciples, designated it the Kuo-ch’ingssu (“monastery for the purification of the empire”), the name it still bears.61 Yang Kuang continued to feel a deep sense of commitment toward the T’ien-t’ai community, as can be seen from the surviving correspondence in the Kuo-ch’ing po-lu. When Yang Kuang became crown prince in the year 600, two of Chih-i’s leading disciples, Kuan-ting and Chih-tsao, were dispatched to convey the good wishes of the T’ien-t’ai community. At Yang Kuang’s accession in 604 a letter of congratulations was sent to Ch’ang-an by Chih-yüeh, the head monk at T’ien-t’ai. The new emperor responded by sending various gifts to the T’ien-t’ai community.62 There is little doubt that Yang Kuang remained a devoted patron of the T’ien-t’ai school for the remainder of his life. Thus we find him, as he is making preparations for his ill-fated Korean expeditions in 607, inviting Kuan-ting to visit him at his field headquarters to reminisce about his deceased master.63 59   KCPL 3, doc. 66, T 46.810c; ibid., doc. 53, T 46.808a. 60   C TP, T 50.196a. 61  The name is indicative of the role the temple was supposed to play in the protection of the state. According to tradition, this name was chosen for the temple because of a vision that Chih-i had in which a deceased monk prophesied that the empire would become pure only when such a temple would be erected for Chih-i by a powerful ruler who had unified the empire. See KCPL 3, doc. 88, T 46.816a. 62   KCPL 3, doc. 72, T 46.812b; ibid., doc. 82, T 46.814c; ibid., doc. 83, T 46.815a. 63   H KSC 19, T 50.584c.

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Just as it might be said that the most significant accomplishment of the Sui dynasty was the unification of a China that had been politically divided for two and one half centuries, so also can it be asserted that the most outstanding achievement of Chih-i was his successful synthesis of two distinct, and often hostile, traditions: northern meditative Buddhism and southern exegetical Buddhism. It is not surprising that Chih-i should have effected in the religious sphere what his imperial patrons accomplished in the political one; the times seemed to demand unification, both political and cultural. The necessity of integrating northern meditation and southern exegesis must have already become apparent to Chih-i while he was studying under Hui-ssu, for there is evidence that he practiced both before moving to Chin-ling in 568.64 Nevertheless, his early surviving works indicate that before the unification of China by the Sui, Chih-i had not yet formulated the fundamental principles on which his later synthesis was to be based, which strongly suggests that his harmonization of northern and southern Buddhism was influenced by political events. Chih-i’s efforts to achieve a new synthesis had to take account of the various schemes of classifying the scriptures according to the degree of spiritual truth they revealed. Such classifications, called p’an-chiao, varied with the individual scholar, since each scholar had his own view as to which text in the canon contained the ultimate doctrine of the Buddha. Although Chih-i himself mentions no less than ten such classifications,65 three of which are southern and seven northern, two classifications clearly predominate: that of the Nieh-p’an scholar, Hui-kuan (363–443), in the south and that of the Ti-lun scholar, Huikuang (468–537), in the north. Five of the remaining eight classifications can be considered minor variations of these two. For Chih-i to achieve a real unification of Chinese Buddhism he would somehow have to reconcile not only the divergent approaches toward Buddhism manifested in the long-standing antithesis between northern meditation and southern exegesis, but also the conflicting classifications of doctrine, such as the northern claim that the Hua-yen-ching represented the highest teaching of the Buddha as opposed to the southern view that the Nieh-p’an-ching constituted his ultimate message. His task was rendered more difficult by his own conviction that in fact it was neither the Hua-yen-ching nor the Nieh-p’an-ching that embodied the quintessence of Buddhist doctrine but the Lotus Sūtra,

64  Besides practicing meditation Chih-i lectured on the Po-jo-ching and Lotus. See HKSC 17, T 50.563b and 564b; also CTP, T 50.192a. 65   Fa-hua hsüan-i 10A, T 33.801a.

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which, despite its great popularity in the south, did not figure in any of the ten classifications as the highest revelation. As was typical of the founders and systematizers of the T’ang schools, Chih-i read the scripture in the light of his own religious intuition and experience rather than in the literal fashion that had prevailed before his time. Whereas the traditional method of exegesis had been one of “literal interpretation” (suiwen chieh-shih), Chih-i perfected the method of searching out and expounding the “hidden meaning” (hsüan-i) of the text,66 which was subsequently adopted by such eminent T’ang scholar-monks as Chi-tsang, Shan-tao, and Fa-tsang. It was Chih-i’s discovery of the “hidden meaning” of the Lotus after the unification of China by the Sui that enabled him to integrate northern and southern Buddhism and, in the process, to establish the supremacy of the Lotus over all other scriptures. After a critical study of the various existing systems of classifying the sacred books, it became apparent to Chih-i that in addition to the opposing theories regarding the ultimate teaching of the Buddha, there was also some inconsistency in the arrangement and the categories used. The northern classifications merely listed in ascending order five schools (tsung), each identified by a particular doctrine (chiao). The southern classifications, on the other hand, first arranged the Buddha’s teachings into categories based on pedagogical methods described as “sudden,” “gradual,” and “indeterminate” and then proceeded to subdivide the “gradual teachings” into five ascending sets of doctrines, each represented by a particular sutra or class of sutras preached in one of the five periods into which the life of the Buddha had been divided. Such a classification, however, had serious shortcomings in Chih-i’s view. The Huayen-ching, described simply as a “sudden teaching” by Hui-kuan, was neither characterized doctrinally nor assigned to one of the five periods in the life of the Buddha, since these periods came under the heading of “gradual teachings.” Equally unsatisfactory was the identification of the five sets of doctrines with specific sutras or groups of sutras, since a particular doctrine, for example, nonsubstantiality, might be found in several different groups of sutras; or, conversely, a single sutra, for example, the Nieh-p’an-ching, might contain a variety of doctrines. In his own synthesis Chih-i asserted that a proper classification (p’anchiao) must treat three distinct elements: (1) the five periods (wu-shih) in the life of the Buddha, each corresponding to a sutra or group of sutras; (2) the 66  Compare, for example, the commentary by Seng-chao (384–414) on the Wei-mo-ching (T no. 1775) with Chih-i’s commentary on this same sutra entitled Wei-mo-ching hsüanshu (T no. 1777).

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four methods resorted to by the Buddha to teach sentient beings (hua-i ssuchiao); and (3) the four basic types of doctrines (hua-fa ssu-chiao) that the Buddha taught.67 Like Hui-kuan, Chih-i divided the life of the Buddha into five periods, each bearing the name of a sutra or class of sutras: (1) Hua-yen (Avataṃsaka); (2) O-han (Āgama), the period of the Hīnayāna sutras; (3) Fangteng (Vaipulya), the period of the Mahāyāna sutras other than the Hua-yen, Po-jo (Prajñāpāramitā), Lotus, and Nieh-p’an (Mahāparinirvāṇa Sūtra); (4) Pojo; and (5) the Lotus and Nieh-p’an. Chih-i modified Hui-kuan’s classification of five periods by grouping the Lotus and the Nieh-p’an together in the last period in order to accommodate the Hua-yen-ching, which he placed in the first period. Thus the sutra that had been held in the highest esteem in the north was accorded the honor of being recognized as the first sermon of the Buddha; while the Nieh-p’an-ching, the most widely read text in the south, retained its position as the last discourse of the Buddha. In his formulation of the pedagogical methods used by the Buddha Chih-i relied upon the terminology current in the south. He adopted without change the designations “sudden,” “gradual,” and “indeterminate,” but subdivided the last category into “secret indeterminate teachings” (pi-mi pu-ting-chiao) and “manifest indeterminate teachings” (hsien-lu pu-ting-chiao). Chih-i, however, reinterpreted the word indeterminate to apply to the type of spiritual benefit derived by a person who came in contact with a particular doctrine and not to a category of sutras, as his predecessors had done. Chih-i held that a person’s religious attainments ultimately depended more upon his native intellect than upon the specific teachings to which he was exposed. Thus a man with a sharp mind could perceive a Mahāyāna doctrine even though he was reading a text which was ostensibly Hīnayānist, while a dull person would tend to reduce the most profound Mahāyāna ideas to Hīnayānist banalities. In Chih-i’s view sutras were not exclusively Hīnayānist or Mahāyānist, since these terms referred to the state of mind of the reader rather than to the text itself. Chih-i applied the term secret indeterminate teaching to the method employed by the Buddha whereby he preaches to an assembly of people, each of whom is unaware, thanks to the Buddha’s supernatural powers, that other persons are also present. This sort of discourse is called “indeterminate” because each person in the assembly interprets the meaning of the Buddha’s words in his own way and hence achieves a different degree of spiritual insight. In the case of the “manifest indeterminate teachings” one sees that other persons are present at a discourse, but does not realize that each person is understanding the Buddha differently. 67  The following account is based on Ti-kuan, T’ien-t’ai ssu-chiao-i, T 46.774c–780a.

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By far the most original element in Chih-i’s synthesis is to be found in his categorization of the four types of Buddhist doctrine. The first of these, termed “Teaching of the Tripitaka” (tsang-chiao), signified Hīnayāna and included the P’i-t’an (Abhidharma) and Ch’eng-shih (Tattvasiddhi) schools. The second type of doctrine, called “Common Teaching” (t’ung-chiao), referred to the concept that all things are nonsubstantial. The designation “common” indicated that although this is essentially a Mahāyānist view, it also appears in certain Hīnayāna texts. The San-lun (Mādhyamika) school was regarded as the principal exponent of this view, although it was accepted by all other Mahāyānists. The third type of doctrine was designated “Separate Teaching” (pieh-chiao) because it embraced concepts unknown to the Hīnayāna—specifically, the view that each dharma (element) has three distinct aspects: one of nonsubstantiality (k’ung), one of seeming substantiality (chia), and one representing the middle position (chung) which combines both of the preceding aspects. The Ti-lun and She-lun schools (both Yogācāra schools) were held to be representative of this type of doctrine. Chih-i designated the fourth and highest doctrine “Perfect Teaching” (yüan-chiao), which, in his view, found its fullest expression in the Lotus, although he recognized that it appeared fragmentarily in other Mahāyāna sutras as well. In contrast to the Separate Teaching, which held that the world is made up of discrete elements (dharmas), the Perfect Teaching of the Lotus stressed the essential harmony and interrelatedness (yüan-jung) of all phenomena. This type of doctrine was not restricted merely to a discussion of metaphysical questions, such as the nature of the three aspects of a given dharma, but was drawn upon by Chih-i to provide doctrinal justification for the reconciliation between the hitherto conflicting practices of meditation and exegesis, both of which received equal weight in Chih-i’s new system. Chih-i’s classification had two clear goals. The first was to unify the Buddhist world, which had been divided both in its religious practices and its choice of scripture; the second was to establish the supremacy of the Lotus over all other sutras. Having determined that the hidden meaning of the Lotus was the doctrine of the interrelatedness of all dharmas, Chih-i was able to proclaim that there was no real opposition between the southern practice of exegesis and the northern practice of meditation. On the contrary, one complemented the other; either by itself was inadequate. The northerners who regarded the Hua-yen-ching as containing the highest doctrine were conciliated by having their sutra recognized as the first discourse of the Buddha after his enlightenment. Its teaching, like that of the Lotus, was classified as “perfect,” differing from the latter only in that it was intended for great bodhisattvas rather than for ordinary men. Chih-i similarly took account of the followers of the Niehp’an school in the south by conceding that this sutra, in purely temporal terms,

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represented the last discourse of the Buddha before his death. Like the Huayen-ching, the Nieh-p’an-ching, too, was said to contain elements of the Perfect Teaching. Although Chih-i, in deference to its southern devotees, was forced to recognize that the Nieh-p’an-ching was the final message of the Buddha, he held that it was only in the Lotus that the Buddha revealed his ultimate teaching. To the obvious criticism that if this were the case, the Buddha would not have preached still one more sutra after the Lotus, that is, the Nieh-p’an-ching, Chih-i replied that the Buddha taught the latter sutra out of compassion for those people who were not present when the Lotus was preached, citing specifically the incident related in the Lotus in which some five thousand persons withdrew just as the Buddha was about to give a discourse on the concept of One Vehicle.68 Since it would be out of place here to attempt a comprehensive survey of T’ien-t’ai doctrines, we shall merely mention briefly those teachings that might be viewed as fundamental to the Chinese Buddhism of the T’ang period. One of the principal ideas of the T’ien-t’ai school is the concept of universal enlightenment (i-ch’ieh ch’eng-fo). This idea, which permeates the Lotus but is also found in many other Mahäyäna sutras, in essence rejects the exclusiveness of Hīnayāna, which would limit the attainment of enlightenment only to those people who were able to sustain a long, arduous course of various religious practices. At the root of the idea of universal enlightenment is the belief that since the Buddha is the embodiment of compassion, he would not proclaim a doctrine so difficult that only a few men could benefit from it. In the Lotus the Buddha declares that the real purpose of his coming into this world is to cause men to achieve an enlightenment that is in no way different from his own, and he solemnly prophesies that all sentient beings, male and female, wise and ignorant, will ultimately attain Buddhahood.69 Related to this ideal of universal enlightenment is the rejection of the concept of Three Vehicles (san-ch’eng) as real ultimate entities.70 The Three Vehicles refer to the traditional threefold division of the Buddhist doctrine into Śrāvakayāna, Pratyekabuddhayāna, and Bodhisattvayāna, which for our purposes may be reduced to Hīnayāna (the first two vehicles)71 and Mahāyāna (the 68   Fa-hua-ching 1, T 9.7a. 69  Ibid., 7a, 8a–10b. 70  Ibid., 7b. 71  Strictly speaking, Śrāvakayāna (“Vehicle of the Disciples”) refers to those people who follow the teachings of the Buddha as outlined in the Āgamas (the Hīnayāna sutras), whereas the Pratyekabuddhayāna (“Vehicle of the Solitary Buddhas”) is the name given to those persons who attempt to attain enlightenment on their own by meditating on the law of causality without ever coming into contact with the teachings of the Buddha. Since the Paul W. Kroll - 978-90-04-38020-2 Downloaded from Brill.com11/15/2020 06:09:18AM via San Francisco State University

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third vehicle). Since Chih-i, basing himself on the Lotus, held that all men were ultimately destined to attain an enlightenment no different from that of the Buddha, he could not accept that Hīnayāna, which from his own Mahāyānist point of view offered an inferior reward, could ever have been taught by the Buddha as an independent spiritual goal. Rather he viewed Hīnayāna as an expedient doctrine devised to win over those men of limited intellectual capacity who would be unable to appreciate the subtleties of Mahāyāna at their first exposure to it. In place of Three Vehicles Chih-i taught that there was in fact only one real vehicle (i-ch’eng), that of the Buddha, into which both the traditional Hīnayāna and Mahāyāna would coalesce—hence the celebrated T’ien-t’ai thesis that “the Three Vehicles are but a means, the One Vehicle being the ultimate truth.” The practical side of Chih-i’s Buddhism can be seen in his formulation of the principle that Buddhahood could be rapidly attained in the present life.72 In traditional Indian Buddhism the status of the Buddha was so exalted that some select individuals might ultimately reach his level, but only after countless kalpas (eons) of religious practice. Even in the case of the historical Buddha, Śākyamuni, it was thought that his religious life did not begin in this world at the age of twenty-nine, but in fact commenced many millennia ago so that his attainment of enlightenment at the age of thirty-five represented the culmination of an effort sustained over many lives.73 Although such a view might be acceptable to the Indians with their own peculiar concept of time, it clearly was not to the Chinese, who sought a more tangible reward for their religious efforts. Even though Chih-i formulated a highly complex system of meditations, each of which brought the devotee to a higher stage of awareness, he opened up the way, at least in principle, for the rapid attainment of Buddhahood in this life. In taking this position he drew inspiration from the well-known story in the Lotus of an eight-year-old girl who, through simple acts of piety, was promptly transformed into a man and attained Buddhahood.74 It was probably for this reason that Chih-i set up the category of indeterminate Śrāvakayāna and the Pratyekabuddhayāna achieve similar results, they are customarily grouped together under the generic name of Hīnayāna. 72  See, for example, his Fa-hua wen-chü 8B, T 34.117a. 73  Theravādin tradition holds that the historic Buddha began his religious quest “four asankheyyas (‘incalculably long eons’) and a hundred thousand cycles ago” (T. W. Rhys Davids, Buddhist Birth-Stories [English translation of the Jātaka-nidāna] [London, n.d.], p. 82). For a similar view in the Mahāyānist literature see the Shen-mi chieh-t’o-ching (Samdhinirmocana-sūtra) 5, T 16.684c. 74   Fa-hua-ching 4, T 9.35b–c. When the Lotus was compiled c. first century ad, it was not considered possible for a woman to attain enlightenment without first being reborn as a man. Paul W. Kroll - 978-90-04-38020-2 Downloaded from Brill.com11/15/2020 06:09:18AM via San Francisco State University

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teachings, which makes it possible for people exposed only to Hīnayāna texts to derive a Mahāyāna-type reward. Similarly, despite his intricate schema of fifty-two stages for the aspirant to Buddhahood, Chih-i recognized the possibility of jumping over whole groups of these stages.75 Although the T’ien-t’ai doctrines were formulated under the Sui dynasty and reflect the cultural and political exigencies of the day, they have nevertheless come to be recognized as an embodiment of the most cherished ideals of Chinese Mahāyāna and as such are found to a greater or lesser degree in all of the T’ang schools except the Fa-hsiang school. From the standpoint of the Buddhist historian, it would be futile to attempt to distinguish, on the basis of doctrine, between the T’ien-t’ai Buddhism of the Sui and the various T’ang schools, since they share common ideals. Yet despite the “T’ang” character of the T’ien-t’ai school, it entered an almost total eclipse during the first half of the T’ang dynasty. It is difficult to accept the explanation offered by some contemporary scholars that this sudden decline was due to a lack of suitable successors to Chih-i and Kuan-ting,76 since they had a very large number of disciples who could carry on their work.77 Furthermore, we have abundant evidence that the patriarchate was maintained at the Kuo-ch’ing-ssu. The compiler of the Hsü-kao-seng-chuan, completed in 664, demonstrated by his detailed biographies of Hui-ssu, Chih-i, Kuan-ting, and other T’ien-t’ai figures that he was familiar with the T’ien-t’ai tradition, as did Fa-tsang (643–712), the de facto founder of the Hua-yen school, who cited Chih-i’s writings.78 The fact that T’ien-t’ai texts were brought to Japan in 754 by the Vinaya master Chien-chen79 indicates that despite the apparent waning of interest in T’ien-t’ai among the clerical elite during the first half of the T’ang, its literature was still circulating and its ideas were respected. Since T’ien-t’ai is doctrinally inseparable from the T’ang schools, its decline throughout the first half of the T’ang ought not to be ascribed to a dogmatic bias on the part of prominent T’ang monks. Rather it would seem that the T’ang 75  This process of “jumping over,” which occupies an important place in the T’ien-t’ai dogma, is technically termed pei-chieh. For a brief account see Ti-kuan, T’ien-t’ai ssu-chiao-i, T 46.778a. 76  Michihata Ryōshū, Chūgoku bukkyōshi [A History of Chinese Buddhism], 4th ed. (Kyoto, 1969), p. 131. 77   C TP, T 50.197c, credits him with having personally ordained more than fourteen thousand monks and states further that he had thirty-two disciples to whom he transmitted his teachings. 78  Shimaji Daitō, Tendai kyōgakushi [A history of T’ien-t’ai doctrine] (Tokyo, 1929), p. 118. 79  Genkai (fl. late eighth century), Tō Daiwajō tōseiden [A record of the journey to the East by the great T’ang monk (Chien-chen)], Dainihon bukkyō zensho 113.120a.

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imperial family declined to give support to the T’ien-t’ai, as did those monks whom the state was patronizing, because of the extraordinarily close connections that existed between the T’ien-t’ai school and the Sui imperial house of Yang, now supplanted by the T’ang. Chih-i, in his last letter to Yang Kuang, repeatedly spoke of his “three obligations”: to the Buddhist religion, to the state, and to all sentient beings, vowing that even after his death he would protect the territory of Prince Kuang. He gave advice to Yang Kuang on how to cope with economic problems arising from the shipment of tax grain and affirmed that both the land and its inhabitants belong to the prince.80 We have noted that Yang Kuang—first as Crown Prince and then as Emperor—continued his support for the T’ien-t’ai community after Chih-i’s death in 597. It is hardly surprising, then, that the newly established T’ang ruling family did not look upon the T’ien-t’ai community with much enthusiasm.

The Fa-hsiang School

We observed earlier that the first three T’ang emperors could not be regarded as pious Buddhists in the same sense that the emperors of the southern dynasties were and that their concessions to the Buddhist church were based on political rather than religious considerations. Such considerations led T’ai-tsung and Kao-tsung to patronize the Fa-hsiang school, which completely dominated the scene in the capitals from the time of Hsüan-tsang’s return from India in 645 to the usurpation of the T’ang throne by Empress Wu in 690, after which date the Fa-hsiang gradually began to lose influence among clerical scholars in Ch’angan and Loyang, until its lineage came to an end in the middle of the eighth century.81 Judged by the sophisticated standards of Chinese Mahāyāna set by the T’ien-t’ai and acknowledged by the other T’ang schools, the Fa-hsiang can be regarded only as an anomaly in the development of Buddhist thought in China. The great, albeit short-lived, success that it scored under the reigns of T’ai-tsung and Kao-tsung can be understood only if we consider the personal relations between Hsüan-tsang and the T’ang rulers. Without these connections, the Fa-hsiang school, arriving from India when it did, would hardly have had so profound an impact on the Buddhist scholars in the great monasteries of seventh-century Ch’ang-an and Loyang. 80   KCPL 3, doc. 65, T 46.810a–c. 81  The last orthodox Fa-hsiang commentator was Chih-chou who died in 733 (Bokuyōkō hyōhaku-mon, quoted in Fukihara Shōshin, Nihon yuishiki shisōshi [A history of Vijñaptimātratā thought in Japan] [Tokyo, 1944], p. 121).

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The rise of the Fa-hsiang school is of course intimately connected with Hsüan-tsang (600–64), the prodigious translator who first introduced its ideas into China.82 Even before his ordination in Ch’eng-tu at the age of twentytwo, Hsüan-tsang showed great interest in the She-ta-ch’eng-lun (Mahāyānasaṃgraha),83 a treatise belonging to the Yogācāra school of Indian Mahāyāna. His fascination with this text continued unabated during his subsequent studies under various masters in different parts of China. Convinced that this work could be properly understood only when the encyclopedic Yogācārabhūmi84—the fundamental treatise of the Yogācāra school—became available in Chinese, Hsüan-tsang resolved to go to India to procure a copy. In the year 629 he applied to the authorities for permission to journey abroad but was forbidden to leave the country. Since T’ai-tsung was at this time completing the process of consolidating the empire, his bureaucrats no doubt felt it too risky to allow one of his subjects to travel to foreign lands for such a dubious purpose as collecting Buddhist scriptures. Hsüan-tsang was nevertheless determined to pay a visit to India and left China surreptitiously, occasionally aided en route by highly placed Chinese officials who were well disposed toward Buddhism. In India, where he spent some fifteen years, Hsüan-tsang concentrated on the Yogācāra and Abhidharma doctrines. His principal teacher, under whom he studied for five years, was Śīlabhadra, an elder at Nālandā, the greatest center of Buddhist learning in India. Śīlabhadra had been a disciple of Dharmapāla (died c. 560), a brilliant but highly unorthodox Mahāyāna thinker, whose views Śīlabhadra subsequently transmitted to Hsüan-tsang. Although East Asian Buddhists have traditionally regarded Dharmapāla as the authoritative interpreter of Vasubandhu, one of the most important Yogācāra philosophers, modern critical research based upon Indian and Tibetan sources unknown in China and Japan has established that Dharmapāla, for all his prominence in East Asian Buddhism, was a relatively minor figure in Indian Yogācāra who did not faithfully represent

82  The most detailed biography of Hsiian-tsang is the Ta-tz’u-en-ssu San-tsang Fa-shih chuan (T no. 2053), compiled by two of his disciples, Hui-li and Yen-tsung. There are two incomplete English translations: Samuel Beal, The Life of Hiuen-Tsiang (London, 1911), and Li Yung-hsi, The Life of Hsüan-tsang (Peking, 1959). 83   T nos 1592, 1593, 1594, and 1596 (which includes the commentary by Vasubandhu). This treatise is the basic scripture of the She-lun school, the designation She-lun being an abbreviation of She-ta-ch’eng-lun. 84  This work was translated by Hsüan-tsang in 648 under the title Yü-chia shih-ti-lun (T no. 1579).

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Vasubandhu’s ideas in his commentaries.85 Although firmly committed to such fundamental Mahāyāna teachings as the non-substantiality of all dharmas, the bodhisattva ideal, and the theory of the four bodies of the Buddha,86 Dharmapāla, perhaps as a reflection of the frustrations encountered by the Buddhist community in India of his day, challenged a number of widely held Mahāyāna assumptions. He rejected, for example, the view found in the Lotus that the Three Vehicles are merely an expedient device designed to lead all men to the ideal of Buddhahood. The gap between Hīnayāna and Mahāyāna, in his view, could not be bridged—each had its unique practices and each led to a different result, the former of course, being inferior to the latter. Dharmapāla argued that the man with a Hīnayāna mentality was constitutionally incapable of appreciating Mahāyāna, so absolute was the distinction between the two.87 He also held firmly to the traditional view that enlightenment could be achieved only after undergoing complex meditations for a period of “three kalpas of incalculable length.”88 His highly scholastic conception of Buddhist religious practices had little sympathy for the pietism expressed in the Lotus that allowed an eight-year-old girl to attain Buddhahood. Dharmapāla’s sharpest break with orthodox Mahāyāna thinking is to be found in his repudiation of the doctrine of universal enlightenment. He did not maintain simply that some persons might not reach enlightenment, but argued that there was one category of people for whom the attainment of Buddhahood was impossible. Such beings, through no fault of their own, inherently lack what Dharmapāla termed “untainted seeds” and hence are eternally excluded from salvation.89 The best that the unfortunate beings in this category might hope for is a round of favorable rebirths, which could be achieved by an accumulation of merit. Such were some of the unconventional ideas that Hsüan-tsang picked up during his sojourn in India. The concept of three distinct vehicles and the view that Buddhahood was realizable only after a lengthy period of religious practice, although vehemently rejected by T’ien-t’ai, at least represented views 85  Dharmapāla’s position in the history of Indian Buddhism was first reappraised by Ui Hakuju in his monumental Indo tetsugaku kenkyū [Studies in Indian philosophy] (Tokyo, 1929 and 1930), vols. 5 and 6. 86  The body of the Buddha as he appears to unenlightened beings in this world, as he appears to bodhisattvas in the upper regions, as he appears to himself, and as an embodiment of the Absolute. 87   Ch’eng-wei-shih-lun 2, T 31.8a–b. 88  Tz’u-en, Ch’eng-wei-shih-lun shu-chi 9B, T 43.555c. 89   Ch’eng-wei-shih-lun 2, T 31.9a.

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that had been held by some monks belonging to the exegetical schools of the Nan-pei-ch’ao. However, the notion that one group of sentient beings was to be permanently excluded from salvation ran counter to the most cherished ideal of Chinese Buddhism. As far back as the beginning of the fifth century Taosheng had argued on the basis of an incomplete version of the Nieh-p’an-ching that even the most corrupt man was eligible for, and indeed would ultimately attain, enlightenment.90 In view of this background, it seems strange at first glance that Hsüan-tsang should have accepted such doctrines during his stay in India. That he did so, however, is probably attributable to his deep personal attachment to his Indian master, Śīlabhadra, whom he regarded as the most authoritative spokesman of the Yogācāra school. If his biographies are to be believed, Hsüan-tsang won great fame in India. It is reported that he expounded the Dharma before kings, gave lectures on the scripture to monks and laymen, defeated heretics in debate, and composed a number of Sanskrit polemics. When he arrived in Turfan in 644 en route back to China, he took the precaution of sending T’ai-tsung a letter which, in addition to offering an apology for having left the country without authorization, contained a tantalizing description of his travels abroad. Hsüan-tsang did not fail to point out that while in India he “proclaimed the virtue of His Majesty so as to win the respect and admiration of the foreign people.”91 T’ai-tsung, not slow to sense that Hsüan-tsang with his unique firsthand knowledge of foreign lands could prove to be a valuable asset to the state, promptly replied that he was overjoyed that Hsüan-tsang was now returning and urged him to proceed to Ch’ang-an with all possible haste. Envoys were dispatched to make contact with him in Sha-chou whence he was to be conducted to the capital to receive an official welcome. Hsüan-tsang arrived at Ch’ang-an on the twenty-third day of the first month in the year 645 only to find that T’ai-tsung was in Loyang making preparations for his forthcoming campaign against Koguryǒ. The first meeting between the two men, which was apparently a brief one, took place in Loyang on the first day of the second month. Their second meeting, of which we are fortunate to have a detailed account,92 occurred on the twenty-third day of the same month. At this meeting Hsüan-tsang thought it prudent to apologize once again for his illegal flight abroad, while at the same time he took care to flatter T’ai-tsung by telling him that he (Hsüan-tsang) was able to complete safely his seventeen-year journey through foreign lands only because of the protection afforded by his being a subject of the emperor 90   Kao-seng-chuan 7, T 50.366c. 91  Li, The Life of Hsüan-tsang, p. 203. 92   Ta-tz’u-en-ssu San-tsang Fa-shih-chuan 6, T 50.253a–c.

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of China. T’ai-tsung then proceeded to question Hsüan-tsang in detail, needless to say, not about the latest trends of Buddhist thought in India, but about the “climate, products, and customs of the countries to the west of the Snowy Peaks.” Apparently overwhelmed by Hsüan-tsang’s thorough knowledge of conditions in foreign lands, T’ai-tsung requested that he present the throne with a written account of the countries that he had visited, which Hsüan-tsang did by the middle of the following year. There is no indication that T’ai-tsung at this point had any real interest in the new variety of Buddhism that Hsüantsang brought back, nor did he display any particular curiosity toward it. That he valued Hsüan-tsang primarily for his firsthand knowledge of foreign countries and not for his devotion to Buddhism can be seen from T’ai-tsung’s exhortation to Hsüan-tsang that he abandon the religious life so that he might advise the emperor on political matters. Although Hsüan-tsang no doubt realized the benefits accruing from imperial support, he was not prepared to renounce his life’s work for a political appointment. Rebuffed by Hsüan-tsang’s refusal to return to lay life, T’ai-tsung sought to persuade him at least to travel with the imperial train during the Koguryǒ campaign, but Hsüan-tsang remained firm, protesting that this would be a violation of the precepts that he had vowed to uphold. Thus faced with Hsüan-tsang’s intransigence, T’ai-tsung decided to draw what advantage he could from this monk who, because of his unique experience and qualifications, had already attracted such great interest in the capitals. When Hsüan-tsang declared that it was his wish to serve the empire by translating the six hundred-odd texts that he had brought back from India and therefore sought permission from T’ai-tsung to take up residence at the Shaolin monastery on Mount Shao-shih, southeast of Loyang, T’ai-tsung responded by offering to install Hsüan-tsang in the Hung-fu monastery, which had been built in Ch’ang-an some eleven years earlier in honor of T’ai-tsung’s deceased mother. The emperor instructed the ranking minister, Fang Hsüan-ling, to give whatever material assistance Hsüan-tsang might require. As soon as Hsüantsang arrived at the Hung-fu monastery in the third month of 645, he requested Fang Hsüan-ling to make the necessary arrangements so that he might enlist services of “verifiers, stylists, secretaries, copyists, and so on.”93 By the sixth month no less than twenty-three monks, drawn from monasteries throughout China, had been brought to Ch’ang-an to collaborate with Hsüan-tsang. Among these early assistants were such distinguished monks as Tao-hsüan, Hsüanying, and Ch’ing-mai. When, in 648, Hsüan-tsang completed his translation of the Yogācāra-bhūmi, the text that had originally led him to India, T’ai-tsung 93  Ibid., 253c.

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honored him with a preface and had copies of the treatise distributed throughout the empire,94 thereby helping to disseminate Fa-hsiang ideas. T’ai-tsung’s son and successor, Kao-tsung, who ascended the throne in 649, continued his father’s policy of supporting the translation projects of Hsüan-tsang, even inviting him on occasion to work within the imperial palaces. From the time of his return to China in 645 until his death in 664 Hsüantsang devoted all his energies to translating the texts that he had brought back from India. Although his translations include texts belonging to most of the major traditions of Indian Buddhism, his primary concern, of course, was with the Yogācāra school, which in China came to be called the Fa-hsiang school. To him goes the credit for having made available in Chinese virtually all of the important works of this school. Backed by a large staff of able assistants, Hsüan-tsang translated a total of seventy-six different texts in 1,347 fascicles,95 which was equivalent in size to almost one-quarter of the entire Chinese Buddhist canon as it existed in his day. In all, his output was more than three times greater than that of Kumārajīva, the next most productive translator. The support provided by T’ai-tsung and Kao-tsung enabled him to maintain a large group of disciples who systematically studied each of the newly translated Yogācāra texts and produced commentaries on them. The thoroughness with which each of the Yogācāra texts was examined was unprecedented in the history of Chinese Buddhism.96 Yet the Fa-hsiang school, whose foundations Hsüan-tsang had so carefully laid, barely survived his death by seventy years. The reason for this sudden decline is not difficult to find. Hsüan-tsang had introduced a form of Buddhism from India which, as we have noted above, ran counter to the ideals of Chinese Buddhism so recently given systematic expression by the T’ien-t’ai school. There is no doubt that many ideas of the Fa-hsiang school, such as its elaborate theories regarding the mind, its epistemology, its detailed analysis of the nature and varieties of illusion, its conception of the subconscious, and so on, aroused great interest in the world of Buddhist learning. But ultimately its exclusion of one group of sentient beings from even the possibility of attaining enlightenment and its rejection of the ideal of One Vehicle doomed this school to oblivion. Although imperial patronage assured Hsüan-tsang of a prominent position in the two capitals, with a large captive audience, he nevertheless encountered resistance 94  Ibid., 256a. 95   K’ai-yüan-lu 8, T 55.557b. 96  For a list of the commentaries produced by Hsüan-tsang’s associates on each of the Yogācāra texts see Yūki Reimon, Genjō to sono gakuha no seiritsu [Hsüan-tsang and the formation of his school] Tōyō Bunka Kenkyūjo kiyō 11 (1956): 357–64.

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from various monks, including his own associates. One of his earliest collaborators, Ling-jun, wrote a sharp denunciation of the new ideas introduced by Hsüan-tsang, pointing out fourteen differences between his “new” texts and the older versions translated by Paramārtha.97 And even so close a disciple as Fa-pao, who wrote one of the two standard commentaries on Hsüan-tsang’s translation of the Abhidharmakośa,98 took issue with his master on the question of whether some beings were doomed to endless transmigration.99 It should come as no surprise, then, that when Hsüan-tsang died in 664 and his collaborators scattered, often to join other translators, the Fa-hsiang school fell on hard days. Hsüan-tsang’s mantle was inherited by Tz’u-en (632–82),100 who had been personally ordained by Hsüan-tsang and had been charged by him with the task of propagating the Fa-hsiang doctrine.101 Despite Tz’u-en’s enormous literary output—twenty-eight works attributed to him still survive102— and the vital role he played in systematizing the Fa-hsiang teaching, he was not successful in attracting a large following of his own, probably because of the limited appeal of the Fa-hsiang doctrine. After the death of his master, Tz’u-en stayed on at the Ta-tz’u-en-ssu, the great monastery built in 648 by Kao-tsung while still crown prince for the repose of his mother’s soul. Kao-tsung held Tz’u-en in high esteem and after the latter’s death wrote a eulogy of him.103

The Hua-yen School

After Kao-tsung became ill in 660, Empress Wu gradually began to concentrate political power in her own hands despite the opposition of her ailing husband and of some powerful figures at the court. When Kao-tsung died in 683, she put their twenty-seven-year-old son, Li Hsien (known as Emperor Chung-tsung), on the throne but promptly deposed him two months later in favor of his younger brother, Li Tan (Emperor Jui-tsung). It was probably about this time 97  Ling-jun’s essay is quoted by the Japanese monk Saichō (767–822) in his Hokke shūku 2A, Nihon daizōkyō, Tendaishū kengyō shōsho 1.554a. 98   Chü-she-lun-shu (T no. 1822). 99  See his I-ch’eng fo-hsing chiu-ching-lun 3, Dainihon zokuzōkyō 1.95.4.377 recto b. 100  Tz’u-en’s biography is given in later sources under the misnomer K’uei-chi. See my “Biographical Study of Tz’u-en,” Monumenta Nipponica 15 (1959): 119–49. 101   S KSC 4, T 50.726a. 102  Four or five of these are dubious ascriptions. For a discussion of one such doubtful work see my “Authorship of the Hsi-fang yao-chüeh,” Transactions of the International Conference of Orientalists in Japan 4 (1959): 12–25. 103   S KSC 4, T 50.726b.

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that Wu Chao began actively scheming to occupy the throne in her own right. Since the Confucian tradition did not allow a woman to govern the empire, Wu Chao obviously needed some authoritative statement that would lend legitimacy to her plans. A group of unscrupulous monks headed by Huai-i, who enjoyed entrée into the imperial palace and who is reputed to have been her lover at this time, conveniently discovered some passages in a sutra called the Ta-yün-ching (Mahāmegha-sūtra) which prophesied that seven hundred years after the passing away of the Buddha a pious woman would emerge as the ruler of an empire to which all countries would submit.104 Not only was the woman in the prophesy identified with Wu Chao,105 but it was also asserted that Wu Chao was an incarnation of Maitreya, the future Buddha.106 In 690, the year in which Wu Chao replaced the T’ang dynasty with her own Chou dynasty, of which she was the first and only ruler, Huai-i was rewarded for his services with the title of Duke of O-kuo. Copies of the Ta-yün-ching with appropriate commentaries were ordered to be distributed throughout the empire. In the twelfth month of 690 it was decreed that a monastery designated Ta-yün-ssu should be constructed in each of the provinces as well as in the two capitals. The following year T’ai-tsung’s rescript of 637, which gave precedence to Taoism over Buddhism, was formally rescinded.107 While there can be no doubt that Wu Chao used Buddhism for her own ends, she nevertheless appears to have had a sincere attachment to it. Her maternal grandfather was a member of the strongly pro-Buddhist Sui imperial family, and her mother is reputed to have been a pious Buddhist.108 After the death of T’ai-tsung, whose concubine Wu Chao had been, she retired to a convent, the Kan-yeh-ssu, where she lived as a tonsured nun until being called into Kao-tsung’s service. She showed herself as a patron of Buddhism as far back as 670 when, as the empress of Kao-tsung, she commissioned the construction of the T’ai-yüan-ssu in Ch’ang-an to commemorate her recently

104   T 12.1107a. 105   Wu-hou teng-chi ch’en-shu [Prophesies concerning Empress Wu’s accession to the throne], Stein MS no. 2658, reprinted in Yabuki Keiki, Sangaikyō no kenkyū [Studies relating to the Three Stages school] (Tokyo, 1926), pp. 686–94, esp. p. 686. 106   C TS 183.3554c. In the ninth month of 693 Empress Wu formally assumed the title “Universal Monarch” (Chin-lun sheng-shen huang-ti). In 695 she added to this title the appellation “Maitreya,” but dropped the latter one month later, after a sudden fire destroyed the Ming-t’ang (CTS 6.3076b). 107   C TS 6.3076a. 108  Kenneth Ch’en, Buddhism in China (Princeton, 1964), p. 220.

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deceased mother.109 The period of greatest activity at the Lung-men cave temples, it should be noted, coincides almost exactly with the years of Wu Chao’s ascendancy in Ch’ang-an.110 After the death of Kao-tsung she ordered the construction of the Ta-chien-fu-ssu in his memory.111 The Fo-shou-chi-ssu in Loyang, where I-ching did much of his translation, was another great temple sponsored by her.112 Like the pious rulers of earlier dynasties, Wu Chao enthusiastically supported translation activities. She encouraged the work of Divākara, an Indian monk who arrived in China in 676, by permitting him to reside in such imperially sponsored temples as the T’ai-yüan-ssu and the Hung-fu-ssu, where he was provided with a large staff of assistants. Before his death in 687, Diväkara managed to translate eighteen different Buddhist texts and was honored for his contributions to the canon with an imperial preface composed by Wu Chao.113 After becoming interested in Hua-yen thought, about which we shall have more to say below, Wu Chao dispatched an emissary to Khotan specifically to invite Śikṣānanda to come to China. He arrived in 695 and promptly began work on a new translation of the Hua-yen-ching, which he completed four years later at the Fo-shou-chi-ssu. Wu Chao herself attended the lectures on the text as it was being translated and wrote a preface for it that still survives.114 When I-ching returned to China in 695 after a stay of twenty-four years abroad, Wu Chao personally welcomed him back at the gates of Loyang. Largely under her sponsorship I-ching translated fifty-six texts in 230 fascicles and was granted an imperial preface, as were the other translators supported by Wu Chao.115 Another literary enterprise which she encouraged was the compilation of a new catalogue of the canon entitled Ta-Chou-k’an-ting chungching mu-lu, completed in 695. The editor-in-chief, Ming-ch’üan, in his preface to the catalogue, likened his imperial patroness to a universal monarch who descends into this world to save all sentient beings.116 We have seen that when Wu Chao was scheming to usurp the T’ang throne, she was not loath to use corrupt monks who would distort texts and produce 109  Ts’ui Chih-yüan, T’ang Ta-chien-fu-ssu ku-ssu-chu fan-ching-ta-te Fa-tsang Ho-shang-chuan, T 50.281b. 110  Tsukamoto Zenryū, Shina bukkyōshi kenkyū [Studies in the history of Chinese Buddhism] (Tokyo, 1942), p. 372. 111  Mochizuki Shinkō, Bukkyō daijiten, 4.3302a. 112  Ibid. 5.4454b. 113   K’ai-yüan-lu 9, T 55.564a. 114  Ibid. 566a. 115   S KSC 1, T 50.710b–711a. 116   T 55.372c.

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spurious commentaries as long as she could derive some political advantage from them. Her decrees calling for the dissemination of the relatively unimportant Ta-yün-ching throughout the empire and the construction of a Ta-yün-ssu in each province were likewise clearly motivated by political considerations. Once she was firmly established in power, however, she rid herself of these corrupt monks; Huai-i, the most influential of them, was put to death in 695. After this date she began to establish close relations with a number of respected Ch’an masters. A late eighth-century Ch’an text discovered at Tunhuang, called the Li-tai fa-pao-chi, mentions that in 697 Empress Wu summoned Chih-hsien, a disciple of the fifth patriarch of the Ch’an school, to the court.117 Three years later she invited another disciple of the fifth patriarch, the famous Ch’an master Shen-hsiu, who was then ninety-five. When he presented himself the following year, he was treated with the utmost respect by Empress Wu, who excused him from the obligation of doing obeisance before the sovereign. He was given the title “Master of the Dharma in the Two Capitals and Teacher of the Three Rulers”118 and honored accordingly.119 So great was her respect for Shen-hsiu that she is said to have knelt before him when inquiring about the Dharma.120 Another monk whom she summoned to the court at this time was Heng-ching (634–712), who belonged to the T’ien-t’ai school.121 The Sung-kao-seng-chuan, which records this event, does not offer any explanation why a representative of the T’ien-t’ai school, which had been out of favor for some seventy years, should have been suddenly chosen to serve as Precepts Master (shou-chieh-shih) at the court. It seems likely that Wu Chao’s decision to accord some degree of recognition to T’ien-t’ai at the imperial court was motivated by a desire to dissociate her newly established dynasty from the Fahsiang school, which had been receiving lavish support from the preceding T’ang emperors T’ai-tsung and Kao-tsung. Her partiality toward T’ien-t’ai was no doubt also influenced by her family ties to the Sui imperial household, the great benefactor of the T’ien-t’ai. From the standpoint of the history of Buddhist thought in China, the most significant development during the reign of Empress Wu was the emergence of the Hua-yen school, which soon achieved prominence among the clerical elite,

117  Ibid. 51.184a. 118  A reference to Empress Wu and her two ex-emperor sons, Chung-tsung and Jui-tsung. 119  See Chang Yüeh’s biographical notice of him in CTW 231. la–4b. 120   S KSC 8, T 50.756a. 121  Ibid. 6, T 50.732b–c.

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thanks to her support for its brilliant systematizer, Fa-tsang.122 The Hua-yen school, as its name indicates, is based upon the Hua-yen-ching, a massive sutra,123 which is a composite work consisting of a number of texts that had been circulating independently in India. Some portions of the Hua-yen are as early as the first century ad, while other sections are considerably later. Although the Hua-yen has many ideas in common with the Lotus, such as the concept of One Vehicle, universal salvation, and the transcendental Buddha, it is in many ways a more sophisticated work philosophically, since it is, at least in part, a product of a later period. One of the most distinctive concepts in the Hua-yen is its view that the universe does not consist of a number of discrete elements, but rather is one perfectly integrated whole, each part being organically connected with every other part. From this standpoint the sutra teaches that there cannot be any ultimate distinction between the unenlightened man and the Buddha or between the Hīnayānist and the Mahāyānist. That such differences do exist in the empirical world the Hua-yen does not deny, but it ascribes them to illusions. This position led to an idealistic tendency in the Hua-yen, which can be seen in such well-known lines as “Just as paintings are produced by a master, so are all the worlds created by the artist in one’s own mind”124 and “The mind is like a skillful artist…. In all of the worlds there is not a single thing which it has not made.”125 Another feature of particular interest in the Hua-yen is its cosmology, which depicts a Pure Land presided over by Vairocana Buddha situated in the center of an infinite universe. Surrounding Vairocana’s Pure Land in the ten directions are countless other worlds, each with its own Buddha, which reflect perfectly the central Pure Land of Vairocana in accordance with the Hua-yen principle of the interpenetration of all phenomena. Although the Hua-yen-ching was translated in 420, the actual study of the text did not begin until the last decades of the fifth century. In its basic religious ideas, the Hua-yen, as we have observed, was similar to the Lotus; but it differed from the Lotus in that it contained a far more elaborate philosophical apparatus to justify these positions. The partisans of the Hua-yen naturally 122  For Empress Wu’s involvement with the Hua-yen school see Kamata Shigeo, “Chūtō no bukkyō no hendō to kokka kenryoku” [Shifts in Buddhism during the “Middle T’ang” and state authority], Tōyō Bunka Kenkyūjo kiyō 25 (1961): 201–45; idem, Chūgoku Kegon shisōshi no kenkyū [Studies in the history of Hua-yen thought in China] (Tokyo, 1965), pp. 107–28. 123  In the T edition, the Buddhabhadra version covers 394 pages. The Nieh-p’an-ching, by comparison, covers 238 pages; the Lotus, 60 pages; and the major Pure Land scripture, the Kuan-wu-liang-shou-fo-ching (T no. 365), not quite 6 pages. 124   Hua-yen-ching (Śikṣānanda version) 10, T 10.51c. 125  Ibid. (Buddhabhadra version) 10, T 9.465c.

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took pride in its doctrinal subtleties, while the devotees of the Lotus viewed these refinements in the Hua-yen as more of a hindrance than a help on the path to enlightenment. Although such noteworthy Hua-yen scholars as Fashun (557–640) and Chih-yen (602–68) were active during the reigns of T’aitsung and Kao-tsung, they were not given any significant support by the throne for the propagation of their ideas.126 Chih-yen, who was the author of fourteen works, five of which still survive, was one of the most able Buddhist scholars of his day. Yet we do not find in his biography127 any indication that he was ever invited by T’ai-tsung or Kao-tsung to the court or that he was requested to lecture at any of the great imperial temples in the capital. T’ai-tsung, and Kaotsung after him, were both committed to the support of Hsüan-tsang and the Fa-hsiang doctrines that he was disseminating. As we have already seen, a new situation arose with the usurpation of the T’ang throne by Wu Chao in 690. Buddhism was again accorded precedence over Taoism and placed in a favored position. To justify her seizure of the throne, Wu Chao identified herself with the Buddhist ideal of the universal monarch who proclaims the Dharma for the benefit of all beings throughout the world. Because of the close connection between the Fa-hsiang school and the T’ang rulers whose dynastic line she was now attempting to replace, Wu Chao felt the need to associate herself with a different school of Buddhism, one which would glorify her reign. This she found in the Hua-yen, which, although representing the loftiest Mahāyāna ideals, was as yet untainted by an earlier, discredited imperial patronage. Seeing herself as a universal monarch, she must have been attracted by the Hua-yen with its well-ordered universe presided over by Vairocana Buddha, whose every act was reflected throughout the countless worlds. The analogy with the highly centralized imperial state that she ruled no doubt suggested itself to her.128 Wu Chao’s connection with the Hua-yen school can be traced back at least to the year 670, when she ordered that Fa-tsang, an erstwhile disciple of Chihyen be tonsured and appointed abbot of the T’ai-yüan-ssu, which she had just 126  Fa-shun’s biography indicates that he was, in fact, esteemed by many prominent people at the court, not for his knowledge of the Hua-yen-ching, but for his alleged magical skills. See HKSC 25, T 50.653b–654a. 127  The earliest biography of Chih-yen is the one written by Fa-tsang in his Hua-yen-chingchuan-chi 3, T 51.163b. 128  It might be mentioned here in passing that the Hua-yen-ching was viewed in a similar fashion in Japan during the reign of Emperor Shōmu (724–49). See Hashikawa Tadashi, Sōgō Nihon Bukkyōshi [A comprehensive history of Japanese Buddhism] (Tokyo, 1932), pp. 141–43.

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established in memory of her deceased mother.129 Wu Chao apparently was very much impressed with Fa-tsang, for in 674 she instructed the ten senior monks (ta-te) in the capital to give him the highest ordination (man-fen-chieh). To commemorate the occasion, Wu Chao granted Fa-tsang the honorific appellation Hsien-shou (“wise and preeminent”), by which he is still known. When shortly afterward he lectured on the Hua-yen at the T’ai-yüan-ssu, he was sent various gifts by the empress. From 680 onward Fa-tsang frequently consulted the translator Divākara on questions concerning the Sanskrit text of the Hua-yen, which probably led him to the conclusion that a new translation was needed. Wu Chao, as we have already noted, subsequently invited the Khotanese Hua-yen scholar, Śikṣānanda, to come to China for this purpose, and in 695, under her sponsorship, the second translation of this huge text was begun. The method of translation was similar to that employed by Hsüantsang, some of whose assistants were invited to take part in the project. Fatsang served as Śikṣānanda’s secretary, and Empress Wu, in the fashion of the pious rulers of the preceding dynasties, personally participated in the editorial work.130 When, in 697, rebellion broke out in border areas, Fa-tsang was requested to pray for victory of the imperial forces and was eulogized in an imperial edict when the issue was favorably resolved. Upon the completion of the translation of the Hua-yen-ching in 699, Empress Wu invited Fa-tsang to lecture on the text at the Ch’ang-sheng Palace. Since the empress had difficulty following the abstract ideas in the Hua-yen-ching, Fa-tsang resourcefully used a golden image of a lion in the palace to summarize in concrete terms the abstruse Hua-yen doctrines.131 The outline of that celebrated lecture to Empress Wu survives under the title Chin-shih-tzu-chang [Essay on the golden lion].132 After Empress Wu died in 705, her son, the emperor Chung-tsung, who was restored to the T’ang throne, continued to support Fa-tsang as enthusiastically as his mother had done.133 He commissioned an artist to paint a portrait of the distinguished monk and had a lengthy eulogy of him written. On the initiative of Fa-tsang, Chung-tsung ordered the construction of five Hua-yen monasteries, which were to serve as centers of Hua-yen learning and repositories for the writings of the patriarchs of this school. When Fa-tsang died in 712, he was honored with a state funeral and posthumously given the title of Hung-lu-ch’ing. 129  The chronology of Fa-tsang’s life is based on Hsü-fa, Fa-chieh-tsung wu-tsu lüeh-chi (Dainihon zokuzōkyō 1.2B.7.3.273 recto a–275 recto b). 130  Ibid., 274 recto a. 131   S KSC 5, T 50.732a. 132   T no. 1881. 133   Fa-chieh-tsung wu-tsu lüeh-chi, p. 274 verso a.

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During the thirty-five years that Fa-tsang enjoyed the patronage of Wu Chao, he developed and systematized the Hua-yen doctrines and succeeded in establishing his school as one of the major lines within Chinese Buddhism. Appearing at a time when a new tradition of Buddhism was called for by prevailing political conditions, Fa-tsang, like Chih-i before him, rose to the occasion. Just as the latter was influenced by the Sui ideology to harmonize the disparate trends in the Buddhism of the Nan-pei-ch’ao, so Fa-tsang, as the formulator of a new school that was to be identified with the Chou dynasty, was led to synthesize the major lines of thought that had emerged during the preceding hundred years: the T’ien-t’ai of the Sui dynasty, the Fa-hsiang of the early T’ang, and the Hua-yen of the newly arisen Chou. Fa-tsang accomplished this synthesis by devising a fivefold classification of Buddhist doctrine (wu-chiao).134 The first, and lowest, category for him, as well as for Chih-i, consisted of the Hīnayāna schools (hsiao-ch’eng-chiao). The second category, designated “Elementary Teaching of Mahāyāna” (ta-ch’eng shihchiao), was divided into two parts: the first corresponding to the moribund San-lun school and the second, to the Fa-hsiang school. The third category, termed “Advanced Teaching of Mahāyāna” (ta-ch’eng chung-chiao), referred to the Yogācāra doctrines as taught by the defunct Ti-lun and She-lun schools, which had been introduced into China before the time of Hsüan-tsang. The fourth category, called “Sudden Teachings” (tun-chiao), encompassed the doctrines found in the Wei-mo-ching (Vimalakīrti Sūtra), namely, the ineffable character of all religious experience and the suddenness of the attainment of enlightenment, which are both fundamental to Ch’an Buddhism. The fifth, and highest, category, termed “Perfect Teaching” (yüan-chiao), embraced the concept of One Vehicle with its implicit promise of salvation for all beings. The category of Perfect Teaching was subdivided into two types: (a) that of the Lotus, that is, the T’ien-t’ai school, which was relatively inferior because it was based upon the negative concept of rejection, in that it repudiated the notion of Three Vehicles in favor of One Vehicle; and (b) that of the Hua-yen, which was relatively superior because it was based upon the direct revelation of the doctrine of One Vehicle in accordance with the principle of the interpenetration of all phenomena. It is interesting to note here how neatly Fa-tsang’s classification of the major schools of Buddhism corresponds to the political alignments of the founders of these schools. The Fa-hsiang school, for example, which was so closely identified with the T’ang dynasty, is placed in the second from the lowest category 134  Fa-tsang, Hua-yen i-ch’eng chiao-i fen-ch’i-chang 1, T 45.481b–482b.

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of teachings, behind even the Ti-lun and She-lun schools which it superseded. On the other hand, the Ch’an school, as yet still in its formative stage, is put in the second from the highest category, perhaps in deference to the great esteem in which Wu Chao held various Ch’an monks whom she brought to the capital. The T’ien-t’ai school, which lost its stigma with the temporary eclipse of the T’ang, is suddenly elevated to the status of “Perfect Teaching” after having been ignored for close to a century. In the foregoing dicussion we have endeavored to show that imperial patronage played a decisive role in the formation of the three philosophical schools of T’ang Buddhism. That each of these schools came to the forefront among the Buddhist elite at the time that it did was attributable not so much to the momentum of its own inner doctrinal development as to the close connection that existed between the de facto founder of the school and the imperial family. Although the T’ien-t’ai, Fa-hsiang, and Hua-yen schools each had highly complex metaphysical systems, each, in fact, also served a clearly definable political end. Hence abrupt changes in the political situation immediately affected the standing of these schools. There has been a tendency to regard the philosophical schools as having an independent existence of their own, totally unrelated to the society in which they developed. In this respect they have usually been contrasted with the “popular” schools of Pure Land and Ch’an. The truth is, however, that the philosophical schools were not formulated by monks who were immured in remote monasteries, but rather reflected, to a considerable degree, albeit in the recondite terminology of Buddhism, the political needs of their imperial patrons. We cannot trace here the subsequent development of the T’ang schools in the eighth and ninth centuries, but we should note that imperial patronage— and after the An Lu-shan Rebellion, patronage by regional commanders and local magnates—continued to play a crucial role in the development of Buddhist thought. We have already mentioned that the sudden rise of Esoteric Buddhism (mi-chiao) during the reign of Hsüan-tsung was related to that emperor’s interest in Taoist magic. Similarly, the infusion of Ch’an ideas into Huayen by Ch’eng-kuan (737–838) and Tsung-mi (780–841), the fourth and fifth patriarchs of this school, can be attributed to the support that these two monks received from military men, among whom Ch’an ideas had great appeal. The An Lu-shan Rebellion led to a decline in the emperor’s authority, thus compelling monks to seek other, more reliable, sources of support, which in turn affected the future evolution of Buddhism. Pure Land and Ch’an, which had been steadily gaining adherents among the common people, lesser bureaucrats, and military men now had lay supporters who were emerging as patrons of leading monks, with the result that Pure Land and Ch’an ideas were incorporated into

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the once aristocratic schools. The decline in imperial authority following the An Lu-shan Rebellion marked the end of an era of unprecedented originality and creativity in the history of Chinese Buddhism, one which was distinguished by the appearance of new, highly syncretic schools that demonstrated beyond any doubt the extent to which the Chinese had grasped the intricacies of Buddhist thought.

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Stūpa, Sūtra, Śarīra in China, c. 656–706 ce T. H. Barrett 1

Shorter Histories and Larger Questions*

To a readership of Buddhologists, a study concentrating on a span of a mere fifty years—and at some remove from the lifetime of the Buddha, too— probably requires a word or two of explanation. The interrelationship between structures, texts and relics is surely a topic for investigation on the grand scale, so as to arrive at an understanding of how Buddhism deals with such matters as scripture and memory within the tradition as a whole. Why select a brief fragment of time, less even than an ordinary lifespan, from one particular regional branch of Buddhism, and subject it to microscopic examination? To state the obvious, because this study is not concerned with Buddhological matters in themselves, but with an attempt at historical reconstruction designed to answer a specific question. And, as it happens, that high degree of specificity has not helped in reducing the research that follows to the truly microscopic level. China in the late seventh century was an environment which produced a vast amount of surviving textual information, so far from having to eke out what meaning we may from a strictly bounded collection of materials, it is much more of a problem to feel certain that one has read comprehensively enough to arrive at a definitive answer. This study may, then, be improved upon by future researchers possessed of greater assiduity, but the immediate aim here is simply to establish the area of research covered as an important one for making sense of human experience over the past one and a half millennia. For the question which we are attempting to answer is this: what was the religious environment that encouraged the spread of the new technology of printing in late seventh century China? Here, of course, I cannot answer this question completely, but only in so far as it concerns Buddhism, though I have presented a broader treatment of

Source: “Stūpa, Sūtra, Śarīra in China, c. 656–706 C.E.,” Buddhist Studies Review 18.1 (2001): 1–64. © Equinox Publishing Ltd 2001. * Since presenting my paper at the UKABS conference, I have also been able to benefit from some points brought to my attention by Chen Jinhua, to whom I am grateful.

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some of the issues involved in another lecture.** But to understand the need to focus on an answer—albeit a partial one—in Buddhist terms, we should note that the classic study on the origins of woodblock printing in China, which was based on research carried out more than three quarters of a century ago, is quite clear about the importance of Buddhism in the development of printing technology. It refers explicitly to ‘the duplicating impulse that has always been a characteristic of Buddhism’.1 This may sound slightly mysterious in isolation, but a standard general history of the book is more intelligible: [O]ne of the ways by which the devout Buddhist… acquired merit was by the ceaseless repetition, orally or in writing, of passages from the Buddhist scriptures. A method of endless reduplication of such meritbringing passages by means of impressions on paper from wooden blocks was too precious an opportunity for Buddhist zeal to have overlooked.2 Thanks to more recent work, by K. R. Norman and others on the oral nature of early Buddhist scriptures, and by Richard Gombrich and others on the link between the rise of Mahāyāna and writing, the general factors stimulating reduplication are now tolerably clear: Buddhists needed to repeat their scriptures orally, lest they forget them; Mahāyānists needed to propagate their ideas in writing as energetically as possible, lest their minority opinions disappear from the face of the earth.3 But whereas such factors, plus paper and rudimentary text transfer devices such as seals, were present almost from the start of Chinese Buddhism, there are no signs that Buddhists, once introduced to these resources, were in any sense looking for a way of combining them so as to embark on the mass manufacture of meritorious texts. It surely remains important to try to explain through a closer examination of all the factors involved why the large-scale move to woodblock printing took place when and where it did, even if that attempt at explanation remains at times tentative and incomplete. ** To be published in a collection on China’s technological transfer to the world edited by Glen Dudbridge. A preliminary version is available as ‘The Rise and Spread of Printing: A New Account of Religious Factors’, SOAS Working Papers in the Study of Religions, 2001 (London: SOAS, 2001). 1  T. F. Carter, revised and edited by L. C. Goodrich, The Invention of Printing and Its Spread Westward (New York: Ronald Press, 1955), p. 40. 2  Douglas C. McMurtrie, The Book: The Story of Printing and Bookmaking (New York: Oxford University Press, 1943), pp. 85–86. 3  E.g. K. R. Norman, A Philological Approach to Buddhism (London: SOAS, 1997), pp. 41–57 (and cf. 77–94); R. Gombrich, ‘How the Mahāyāna began’, in T. Skorupski, ed., The Buddhist Forum, i (London: SOAS, 1990), pp. 21–30.

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Printing and the Seventh Century

Chinese scholars have long suspected that woodblock printing was known in China during the seventh century, and lately a few examples of dhāraṇī found in tombs have been dated by archaeologists there to this period, though I am not sure how securely.4 Even so, by looking at some of the religious literature of the period, I have established to my satisfaction that the advantages of speed, accuracy and volume conveyed by printing would have been understood at this time.5 I have also discovered that Taoists were stamping images from woodblock onto paper during the first half of the seventh century.6 It may further be deduced that they were printing text as well during the latter half of the century.7 Yet the earliest securely datable printed materials we have from East Asia are all Buddhist. The first is a dhāraṇī found inside a Korean pagoda (i.e. stūpa), which was constructed in 751. The latest scholarship on this object, a collection of conference papers from a seminar at Yonsei University, Korea, held October 19–20, 1999, continues to show heated disagreement between Korean and Chinese academics over whether this text, the Wugou jingguang da tuoluoni, or Raśmivimalaviśuddhaprabhādhāraṇī, first translated by 704, was made locally or exported from China.8 But until the discovery of this text in 1966, the first material evidence that the world had of woodblock printing was that deriving from a project undertaken in Japan between 764 and 770. During that period the ruler of Japan, the Empress Shōtoku, sponsored the creation of one million miniature pagodas containing printed copies of the same work found in Korea—which, as a mere record in the relevant Japanese chronicle we might be inclined to doubt, were it not that so many survive to this day. As Peter Kornicki notes in a recent 4  Su Bai, Tang-Song shiqi de diaoban yinshua (Beijing: Wenwu chubanshe, 1999), pp. 7–9, gives the most convenient summary of these materials I have seen recently. For some of my doubts over dating (which may perhaps now be set aside), see the study cited in the next footnote. 5  T. H. Barrett, ‘Images of Printing in Seventh-century Chinese Religious Literature’, Chinese Science 15 (1998), pp. 81–93. 6  T. H. Barrett, ‘The Feng-tao k’o and Printing on Paper in Seventh-Century China’, Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 60.3 (1997), pp. 538–40. This article only provides a terminus ante quem for my source; in a review—Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society 10.3 (2000), pp. 419–20—of Florian Reiter’s monographic presentation of the Feng-tao k’o I advance my reasons for dating it to the first half of the seventh century. 7  T. H. Barrett, ‘Evidence for 7th Century Taoist Printing’, Needham Research Institute Newsletter 17 (December, 1998), p. [5]. 8  Thanks to the good offices of my student, Mr. June Seo, a set of these papers is available at the Needham Research Institute, Cambridge.

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summary of this episode, on which he is preparing a substantial monograph, the text in question had already arrived in Korea by 706, for an inscription on the inside of a reliquary box states that another copy was placed inside a pagoda in a different temple in Korea in that year. The proximate source for the Japanese enterprise might therefore have been Korean practice, but he suspects instead some connexion with the Empress Wu, the great Chinese example of female rule, who dominated the court for about fifty years from 655 till shortly before her death in 705.9 But how may we bridge the gap between the Taoist references of the seventh century and these eighth century materials, particularly in view of the fact that the Empress Wu is chiefly known for her public support for Buddhism, whatever her personal attitude towards the Taoist religion? At the 1997 UKABS conference I presented research suggesting that the famous late seventh century pilgrim Yijing’s remarks concerning the printing of short texts on paper for insertion into stūpas in India reflected not Indian practice (which used clay) but the legitimation for Chinese Buddhists of a practice already known to Taoists, with whom they were in competition for sacred space. I also suggested that Yijing’s patron, the Empress Wu, might have stood to gain from this.10 Since this paper was addressed to Buddhologists, I did not expatiate on the Chinese situation, for fear of introducing too much material on Taoism or on Chinese imperial politics, though I gave in footnotes one or two brief indications of my evidence. In the following remarks, however, I hope to provide some documentation suggesting several possible motives for interest in the use of printed texts as relic substitutes on the part of the empress within the context of Buddhist studies, with some tentative conclusions as to what motive in particular may have proved crucial. So before turning to the more specific research task outlined above, it is necessary at least to provide a general account of the phenomenon of the textual relic and its antecedents.

9  Peter Kornicki, The Book in Japan: A Cultural History from the Beginnings to the Nineteenth Century (Leiden: Brill, 1998), pp. 114–117. The date of 706 he derives from p. 8 of Kawase Kazuma, ‘Shiragi Bukkokuji Shakatōshutsu no Muku jōkō daranikyō ni tsuite’, Shoshigaku 2nd series, 33/34 (1984), pp. 1–9, which quotes a Korean epigraphic collection I have not had to hand, but we do return to this evidence below, in the penultimate section of this paper. 10  T. H. Barrett, ‘Did I-ching go to India? Problems in Using I-ching as a Source for South Asian Buddhism’, Buddhist Studies Review 15.2 (1998), pp. 142–156.

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Relics and Texts in the Chinese Buddhist Tradition

The conception of relics and texts which came to prevail in China will, perhaps, be relatively unfamiliar to those primarily interested in the Buddhism of the Pāli canon. As I understand the situation described in these materials— for which I have gone little further than the recent recapitulation of earlier research by Kevin Trainor—images of the Buddha did eventually come to be recognized as relics of a sort within this tradition, and ‘relics of use’, objects associated with the Buddha such as the Bodhi-tree, also played a part.11 But primary interest remained with corporeal relics, as enshrined in the equivalents of stūpas or, to use the sinologist’s term, pagodas—the terminology even of Indian Buddhism is inevitably more complex than can be conveniently summarized here.12 It goes without saying that the image of the Buddha was also of immense importance during the period of Chinese history we are about to consider, and one can point to important reasons for this in the Chinese context. Thus Glen Dudbridge has shown that Chinese tales collected about a century later regard Buddha images as supernatural actors in their own right, regardless of any orthodox clerical interpretation of what they were supposed to represent; these beliefs were probably established well before this point.13 Looked at another, more ideological way, recent research has also stressed the benefits to the standing of both the local elite and the central state in village society of the public consecration of religious images even some two and a half centuries earlier in China.14

11  Kevin Trainor, Relics, Ritual and Representation in Buddhism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), p. 89. Another very useful summary may be found in Steven Collins, Nirvana and other Buddhist Felicities (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), pp. 244–249. 12   Cf. Gregory Schopen, Bones, Stones and Buddhist Monks: Collected Papers on the Archaeology, Epigraphy and Texts of Monastic Buddhism in India (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1997), p. 196, n. 38. For an account of Indian and Chinese enthusiasm for relics extending over the period covered here, but broader in scope and less chronologically organized, see Xinru Liu, Silk and Religion: An Exploration of Material Life and the Thought of People, AD 600–1200 (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1996), Chapter One, pp. 25–48. 13  Glen Dudbridge, ‘Buddhist Images in Action: Five Stories from the Tang’, Cahiers d’Extrême-Asie 10 (1998), pp. 377–391, especially his remarks on pp. 386–7. 14  Liu Shufen, on pp. 28–9 and 46 (summary) of ‘Art, Ritual and Society: Buddhist Practice in Rural China during the Northern Dynasties’, Asia Major, 3rd ser., 8.1 (1995), pp. 19–49.

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Even so, control of text by the state had a particular importance in the Chinese world, and the arrival of an imperial edict in local society was in itself evidently the occasion for public ritualized displays of state power which involved local religious communities as well.15 In this respect, moreover, Chinese orientations towards respect for text coincided with those of the Mahāyāna tradition—hence, perhaps, one reason for its success in East Asia—and it is exclusively within the limits of the Mahāyāna tradition as known and understood in East Asia that I have attempted to grasp any larger background to the phenomena I shall describe. The textualization of relics in the Mahāyāna context links up, of course, with the sacralization of the text, which we have already mentioned. But the point of linkage in doctrinal terms seems to have involved the concept of the dharmakāya, the corpus of the Buddha’s teachings as a form of his presence— a key term as it emerged in the development of Buddhist doctrine, and one over which much ink has been spilt over the years. Again, my account must be minimal. The very ancient saying underlying this development, ‘Whoever sees the Dharma, sees the Buddha’, was already known in China in the third century ce.16 The consequential treatment in religious practice of Buddhist texts as relics may be detected there too from the early fifth century.17 4

Introducing the Empress

Lastly, before embarking on my brief history, I should explain that the chronological limits of my survey are dictated by the period of ascendancy of the Empress Wu. In 655 she was well on her way to defeating her only two rivals in the imperial harem, so that by the start of 656 they had both been subjected to mutilation and judicial murder at her instigation. By 660 her husband’s ill health had obliged him to cede to her a measure of executive power—unusual, but not unprecedented for an empress at this stage in Chinese history. His death in 683 next obliged her to rule through her sons, in the course of which she removed one who showed signs of independence in favour of a more 15  E. O. Reischauer, Ennin’s Diary (New York: The Ronald Press Company, 1955), pp. 180–182, preserves a valuable Japanese observation of this from the mid-ninth century, when the state is generally reckoned to have been much weaker than it was in the seventh century. 16  N. Ross Reat, The Śālistamba Sūtra (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1993), pp. 14, 27. 17  See Robert F. Campany, on pp. 37–40 of ‘Notes on the Devotional Uses and Symbolic functions of Sūtra Texts as Depicted in Early Chinese Buddhist Miracle Tales and Hagiographies’, Journal of the International Association for Buddhist Studies 14.1 (1991), pp. 28–72. Paul W. Kroll - 978-90-04-38020-2 Downloaded from Brill.com11/15/2020 06:09:18AM via San Francisco State University

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pliable sibling. Eventually she took over as Emperor (using the male title) from 690 until a coup against her shortly before her peaceful death at an advanced age in 705.18 As we shall see, the bare outlines of her life are not enough to understand the course of religious events during this career. We should take into account from the start the fact that reactions to her were not, and since her lifetime have not ever been, neutral. In a male-dominated society she has generally, except in the case of one or two rare iconoclasts, inspired feelings of strong revulsion, and her whole career has been seen as the carefully planned outcome of a diabolically clever and scheming nature. The following remarks are not intended to exonerate her from all the charges laid against her, since in order to win and maintain her position she was obliged to perpetrate some fairly dark deeds, but rather than see her regime as the outcome of a well thought out plan, it would seem more natural to suppose that she was primarily concerned to ensure her own survival in unpredictable circumstances that were not of her own making; that she laid plans, but was not prescient enough to ensure that everything unfolded just as she wanted. In any case, it is not the personality of this empress as such that concerns us, but aspects of her knowledge of and deployment of Buddhism. For this remarkable—indeed, terrifying—woman had as a teenager been a concubine of her husband’s father, and on the old man’s death had been consigned to a Buddhist nunnery, where she would have stayed indefinitely had she not already made sure to catch the attention of his heir apparent. From this, and from other indications of her early interest in Buddhism, we can assume as the starting point of our investigation not only the calculating nature unafraid of risks that is acknowledged by her friends and foes alike but also a basic knowledge of Buddhist texts and doctrines. 5

The Empress and India: First Reports

In the matter of the construction of multiple miniature pagodas, however, we do know that by 656 she had made the acquaintance of China’s chief source of 18  Here and below my summary of the dynastic background follows the treatment in D. C. Twitchett, ed., Cambridge History of China, vol. 3, Part 1 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979), chapters five and six. Note in particular that the early involvement of the future empress in Buddhism, though doubted by some, can be confirmed by her own words, as demonstrated by Antonino Forte, Political Propaganda and Ideology in China at the End of the Seventh Century (Napoli: Instituto Universitario Orientale, 1976), pp. 281–284. Paul W. Kroll - 978-90-04-38020-2 Downloaded from Brill.com11/15/2020 06:09:18AM via San Francisco State University

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information at this time on the nature of this practice as current in India. For the great traveller and even greater translator Xuanzang maintained close relations with the throne, and in this year was invited to bestow the bodhisattva ordination on the newborn child of the empress—a precaution which Arthur Waley likens to vaccination.19 If this association moved her to read his travel account of India, composed for the old emperor on his return from his travels, she would have found a full description of how the sagely Indian layman Jayasēna passed his time—quoted here as rendered into the splendid Victorian prose of Samuel Beal: It is a custom in India to make little stūpas of powdered scent made into a paste; their height is about six or seven inches, and they place inside them some written extract from a sūtra; this they call a dharma-śarīra ( fa-shili). When the number of these has become large, they then build a great stūpa, and collect all the others within it, and continually offer to it religious offerings. This then was the occupation of Jayasēna; with his mouth he declared the excellent law, and led and encouraged his students, whilst with his hands he constructed these stūpas. Thus he acquired the highest and most excellent religious merit. In the evening, again, he would walk up and down worshipping and repeating his prayers, or silently sit down in meditation. For eating or sleeping he had little time, and relaxed none of his discipline night or day. Even after he was an hundred years old his mind and body were in full activity. During thirty years he had made seven kōṭis of these dharma-śarīra stūpas, and for every kōṭi that he made he built a great stūpa and placed them in it. When full, he presented his religious offerings and invited the priests; whilst they, on their part, offered congratulations.20 Xuanzang may also have told his later followers in China about this phenomenon, but the account of his meeting with the layman found in his biography, though it mentions a miracle involving the relics of the Buddha which they both witnessed together, passes over his preoccupation with the mass production of miniature texts and stūpas.21 A number of points may, however, 19  Arthur Waley, The Real Tripitaka and Other Pieces (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1952), p. 119. 20  Samuel Beal, Si-yu ki: Buddhist Records of the Western World (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1981 reprint of London: 1888), Volume Two, pp. 146–7. 21  Samuel Beal, The Life of Hiuen-tsiang (London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner, 1911), pp. 156–7.

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be made about this passage, on the assumption that the empress was, indeed, aware of it. First, although an authorial note in the text helpfully (indeed, mercifully) defines a koṭi here as one hundred thousand, the productivity achieved seems extraordinarily high, even for an activity that could presumably be carried on at the same time as participation in other tasks, somewhat in the same fashion as knitting.22 The same may be said of the massive production of religious objects achieved by Xuanzang himself, according to the listings at the end of his biography.23 It may be in the Chinese case that we are dealing with the creation of religious images by stamping from woodblock on paper, for one late, second-hand, but not necessarily inaccurate source does allege that Xuanzang did use such a method to create five packloads of religious images annually.24 Even so, I notice, in the canonical literature recounting the devotion shown to and copying of various famous Buddhist texts in China, the admission that the total productivity credited in at least one case to a named person was achieved by copyists, for whom he acted as sponsor. That such a practice was common is also suggested by the fact that some of the production totals achieved by individuals appear in any case to exceed what would have been possible in a single human lifespan.25 This would mean that the artefacts 22  This passage, in the best edition of Xuanzang’s work now available, is in Ji Xianlin, et al., ed., Da Tang Xiyu ji jiao zhu (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1985), p. 712. 23  This part is not translated by Beal; again, a good modern edition supersedes the Taishō: see Sun Yutang and Xie Fang, eds., Huili and Yancong, Da Ciensi sanzang fashi zhuan 10 (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1983), p. 220. 24  This assertion has recently been reexamined positively by Pan Jixing, Zhongguo, Hanguo yu Ouzhou zaoqi yinshuashu de bijiao (Beijing: Kexue chubanshe, 1997), pp. 42–45, in the light of the other passages concerning Xuanzang which we have adduced here. It should be said that although we normally think of the great pilgrim translator in terms of his contribution to Chinese textual awareness of Indian Buddhism, there is also some evidence that the religious objects he imported influenced the development of material culture, so there is nothing intrinsically improbable in the idea that his use of Indian technology and Chinese materials contributed to the advance of printing: see, for his apparent influence on sculpture, Li Wensheng, Longmen shiku yu lishi wenhua (Shanghai: Shanghai renmin meishu chubanshe, 1993), pp. 41–57. 25  The passage where a copyist is mentioned may be found in Taishō Canon vol.51, p. 46a. Compare also the great Sui period exegete Zhiyi (538–597), who is said (ibid., p. 23a) to have produced fifteen copies of the entire Buddhist canon during his lifetime, to say nothing of more than one hundred thousand gilded and painted wooden images: we should recall that in medieval Japan it took ten thousand people to copy out the Buddhist canon in one day. Granted that the canon was appreciably smaller in Zhiyi’s day, and that a Chinese monk was probably more single-minded than a crowd of medieval Japanese aristocrats, even so the resulting calculation suggests that Zhiyi must have taken more

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attributed to Jayasena and Xuanzang were actualy from the ‘school of’, rather than the personal creations of the masters concerned—and each man seems to have had a goodly number of disciples. Secondly, even though no mention is made of printing the scriptural passage inserted into the stūpas in India, there is every reason to believe that stamps were being used to create texts on clay, for there is plenty of archaeological as well as textual evidence to corroborate the account given by Xuanzang which makes entirely clear the printing element involved. Daniel Boucher, in the magisterial published version of his ma work, provides a very full explanation of this, which I can only synopsize here.26 Starting from the same notion of dharmakāya and the equation ‘He who sees the Dharma sees the Buddha’, he adds (as we have omitted to do) the simultaneous equation in our source that seeing the Buddha’s teaching on causality amounts to seeing the entire Dharma corpus. From the second century ce we find a short statement on causality already used in inscriptions to equate with a corporeal relic; from the end of the sixth century the practice of multiplying such statements, as cast into formal verse, by stamping them on clay is attested by innumerable archaeological examples. But thirdly, there is still a significant gap between the practice described by Xuanzang and Boucher and the invention of printing as I understand it. Jayasena hoards up his little stūpas with their clay prints inside, until they are stored inside a larger one. There is no notion of distributing his printed material here, and indeed his clay stamps are not ideal material for distribution in any case, though the practice of simply making miniature stūpas out of clay, minus any obvious textual material, did apparently spread during the period under consideration from Central Asia (where it may have arrived in the sixth century) to the various kingdoms of East Asia.27 Only Xuanzang’s alleged images on paper are said to have been distributed, as Taoist materials probably were by about this time; paper was a far easier material to transport, but despite its marginal availability around the area of Gilgit does not seem to have displaced clay further south in India, where distribution does not seem to have been envisaged. than one lifetime to complete his task, if it was carried out single handed. Cf. K. Mizuno, Buddhist Sutras: Origin, Development, Transmission (Tokyo: Kosei Publishing, 1982), p. 171. 26  Daniel Boucher, ‘The Pratītyasamutpādagāthā and its Role in the Medieval Cult of the Relics’, Journal of the International Association for Buddhist Studies 14.1 (1991), pp. 1–27. 27  See the study of these forms, which are very hard to date except in the most general terms, by Ishida Mōsaku, Bukkyō kōkogaku ronkō, vol. 4 (Kyoto: Shibundō, 1977), pp. 245–262, and especially his estimate of dates on p. 253.

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The reasons for this we shall discover shortly, but before leaving Indian practice we should note one more facet of it which the empress would have known about through direct observation. For Xuanzang was not the only Chinese to inform their majesties of conditions in the subcontinent; an official named Wang Xuance was also sent out on at least three successive missions by the old emperor and by the husband of the empress, apparently to explore possible diplomatic cooperation with Indian kings. The date of his third mission has been somewhat in doubt, but the surprising recent discovery of an inscription which it left on its way through Tibet would seem to confirm that it went out in 658 and came back the following year.28 There are, however, clear indications that he went back yet again, in 660, and brought back a Buddha relic, a portion of skullbone, which, given that the round trip always took about one year, was presented to the throne in 661, by which time the empress had, as noted above, taken over executive authority. But besides this relic he had also acquired in India other religious items donated by monasteries, including four objects described as ‘Buddha seals’. This can only mean seals for stamping images of the Buddha, and so we can be fairly sure that at least the empress saw and understood the use of these items, since all such gifts were presented at court, not just extraordinarily numinous items such as relics. The sources on this fourth trip may be found cited in the Fayuan zhulin, a compilation on which more will be said shortly.29 6

The Empress and Aśoka

But at this time she and her husband were already engaged in religious activities which, although apparently tangential, do in fact help to explain important factors in her involvement in texts and pagodas. In 659 the couple happened to have invited to the palace a monk renowned for his knowledge of spells, who mentioned to them an ancient pagoda some one hundred kilometers west of the capital, said to have been once attached to an establishment known as the Aśoka Monastery. Now places so named are not uncommon in China, for one of the ways in which the cognitive dissonance between a religion all of whose 28  See p. 263 of Huo Wei, ‘“Da Tang Tianzhu shi chu ming” ji qi xiangguan wenti de yanjiu’, Tōhō gakuhō (Kyoto) 66 (March, 1994), pp. 270–53 (reverse pagination). 29  Daoshi, Fayuan zhulin 29, p. 498a1;39, p. 597b7–12, in edition of Taishō Canon, vol.53, no. 2122. There is just a possibility that the ‘Buddha seals’ were rubbings taken from the relic, after the fashion mentioned by Yijing, which we shall consider below. But even this, as we shall see, is not without relevance to printing.

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holy sites were in India and a China all of whose holy sites were originally non-Buddhist was to suppose that Aśoka, as a cakravartin world-ruler, must have ruled China once, though because of the famous ‘Burning of the Books’ by the First Emperor of China records as to this episode had been lost. This belief inspired a sort of sacred archaeology, already described to some extent by Zürcher, who points out both that it is so easy to unearth ancient structures in China that traces of allegedly Aśokan foundations were not too difficult for pious Buddhists to identify, and that the discovery of such numinous traces in themselves helped to legitimate the reigning monarch in a China where auspicious omens were given great political weight.30 In that these ‘responses to stimuli’ (ganying) were in general not construed as accidental, but as reflections of the ruler’s virtue, discoveries of this type naturally allowed any ruler to bask amongst his (or, as we shall see, her) subjects in the reflected glory of the great Buddhist world-ruler. But we can most certainly go further than this, for Zhou Yiliang has noted well before the Tang the use of Sanskrit-based, Buddhist-tinged rhetoric in South and South-East Asian diplomatic correspondence with China in general, and flattering references to Aśoka in particular. These must surely have encouraged Chinese rulers to see the advantages of claiming Aśokan connexions and if possible projecting an overtly Aśokan role on the international stage as well.31 So it is not surprising to read that the emperor jumped upon this piece of information with alacrity: ‘Is that not the Aśoka who donated a lump of dirt when he was a lad?’ he asked, showing a detailed knowledge of the legend of king Aśoka.32 ‘If there’s something there nowadays, then it’s one of the 84,000 stūpas!’ Doubtless, like the emperor, the reader will recall that with supernatural help the great monarch distributed 84,000 relics of the Buddha in stūpas (in some accounts known in China and elsewhere, within vihāras) across the length and breadth of his domains in a single day.33 On the thaumaturge suggesting that it would indeed be a good idea to check, the enthusiastic emperor replies, ‘If we could find a relic that would be a good cause in the most profound 30  E. Zürcher, The Buddhist Conquest of China (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1959), pp. 277–280. Further information on Aśokan sites in China may now be found in a series of six articles by Murata Jirō in Bukkyō Geijutsu, issues 114 (1977) to 123 (1979). 31  Zhou Yiliang, Wei, Jin, Nanbeichao shi zhaji (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1985), pp. 214–215. 32  For the reference, see John S. Strong, The Legend of King Aśoka (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1983), pp. 200–201, and cf. the comments on pp. 56–69. The offering is made to the Buddha by a child who is, of course, the future Aśoka; the symbolism is too complex to discuss here. 33  Strong, King Aśoka, pp. 219–221, and comments, pp. 115–19.

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way!’, and issues instructions for preliminary ceremonies to be carried out for seven days before conducting a search. To cut a long story short, his agents found the relic, and, leaving behind a statue of Aśoka of equal size to the emperor, brought it back to the capital, where it was soon joined by the skullbone from India.34 When the relic was returned to its place of origin in 662, on the understanding that it would only be put on display every thirty years, it was accompanied by lavish gifts of clothing from the empress. There these textiles of hers remained undisturbed as property of the Buddha (or rather the fraction of him in that place), until rediscovered in 1981.35 For the monastery in question is none other than that best known as the Famensi, whose lavish reliquaries and donated goods (mainly, in firmly identifiable cases, from later in the dynasty) have astonished the modern world, most recently though the ‘Gilded Dragons’ exhibition in London.36 Those fortunate enough to have seen these will have witnessed quite tangible evidence for the imperial obsession with relics. But for our current purposes it is the notion of 84,000 stūpas as a symbol of monarchy that intrigues, for anyone interested in emulating the legendary distribution of such relics would perhaps have been prompted to think of the rapid creation of relics in textual form, and in China would no doubt think of texts on paper rather than clay. Would the empress have had such an interest stimulated? Not necessarily by the discoveries at the Famensi, one imagines, but some other reports reaching her in 661 are far more likely to have caused her to reflect on the manufacture of multiple pagodas. 34  Patricia Karetzky, in n. 30, p. 224, of ‘The Representation of Women in Medieval China’, T’ang Studies 17 (1999), pp. 213–271, suggests that the statue bore the emperor’s features. There were precedents for this under the Northern Wei, but I am not sure that the evidence can be so construed in this case. The capital in question is now Luoyang, not (as above) Chang’an; the empress alternated between the two, but seems to have disliked Chang’an (perhaps fearing the ghosts of murdered rivals) and favoured Luoyang. 35   Fayuan zhulin, 38, pp. 586b–587a. Much of the Chinese scholarship on these finds has been subsumed into a lengthy study by Kegasawa Yasunori, ‘Hōmonji shutsudo no Tōdai bunbutsu to sono haikei’, in Tonami Mamoru, ed., Chūgoku no chūsei bunbutsu (Kyoto: Kyoto daigaku Jimbun kagaku kenkyūjo, 1993), pp. 581–641: see p. 591 (and comments, p. 595) for a late Tang inscription from the crypt which would appear to suggest that the surviving clothing includes a skirt which once belonged to the empress herself. For some spectacular illustrations of these materials (to say nothing of the other finds), see Wu Limin and Han Jinke, Famensi digong Tang mi mantuluo zhi yanjiu (Hong Kong: Zhongguo fojiao wenhua youxian gongsi, 1998), pp. 457–9, though this important mongraph is mainly devoted to the doctrinal implications of the discoveries. 36  Carol Michaelson, Gilded Dragons (London: British Museum Press, 1999), pp. 148–162. Unfortunately, the surviving textiles were too delicate to send abroad for this exhibition.

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And here again the initial motive for launching an imperial investigation concerned the use of religious space. 7

The Empress and the Five Terrace Mountains

For there was one great exception to the Indian location of Buddhist religious space, one extraordinary trump card possessed by the Chinese. In the northeast of China lies a series of peaks known as Wutaishan, the ‘Five Terrace Mountains’, which had become identified with a location mentioned in the Avataṃsaka Sūtra, and were therefore by the seventh century widely believed throughout Buddhist Asia to be the abode of the Bodhisattva Mañjuśrī.37 The empress, whose family was from the area, at this point commissioned a survey of this spiritual asset, and the results must have intrigued her.38 For there was plenty of evidence on the mountains of earlier imperial interest, specifically at first from the Emperor Xiaowen of the Northern Wei, who reigned in the late fifth century. A forebear in the Northern Wei dynasty—a unique, half-foreign regime from which the seventh century ultimately derived many of its political institutions—had once savagely persecuted Buddhism, but Xiaowen is best known as a lavish (and perhaps guilt-stricken) patron responsible for the colossal Buddhist art carved out of the mountain at Yungang.39 On Wutaishan, it was discovered, his imprint had not been so colossal, but it was impressive, for large numbers of miniature pagodas in stone were found in the mountains, 37  Or so it would seem from Chinese sources, though the best evidence for the widespread influence of this belief is somewhat later, as we shall see. The considerable body of recent research in various languages into the religious history of Wutaishan has not yet been brought together in any monographic study, though in English the articles by Raoul Birnbaum and Robert Gimello on this holy site may be read with particular profit, and the book by Du (see next note) covers much relevant material in Chinese; cf. also the article cited in n. 66 below. 38  The speculation that some family interest may have spurred the interest of the empress may be found in Du Doucheng, Dunhuang Wutaishan wenxian jiaolu, yanjiu (Taiyuan: Shanxi renmin chubanshe, 1991), p. 111, though it is pointed out on p. 110 that the Sui dynasty also took an interest in the holy sites there—this precedent in fact gains added interest in view of what follows below. 39  James O. Caswell, Written and Unwritten: A New History of the Buddhist Caves at Yungang (Vancouver: ubc Press, 1988), provides a recent summary of scholarship, pp. 13–28, showing firm evidence for imperial involvement in the project, even if the argument of his study is mainly directed against the assumption that all construction at this site was due to imperial patronage.

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the carvings and (according to one passage) inlaid text or pattern (wen) upon them still visible.40 Now if there were texts on them, the likelihood is that they would have contained the formula on causality studied by Boucher. A number of examples of short stone pagodas less than a metre tall inscribed with texts of this sort have been found not on Wutaishan but further west, and not from the late fifth century, but from its first half, when the region was intially not under the control of the Northern Wei but of the Northern Liang, on the Central Asian fringes of China—indeed, conquest by the Northern Wei drove the last rulers of this dynasty right out of what was normally considered Chinese territory.41 These pagodas, then, have been seen as the product of a distinct regional culture, but a recent analysis of their fusion of Buddhist and Chinese symbolism has revealed clear evidence of eschatological interests on the part of whoever made them, for to symbolism indicating the Buddhas of the past they add also pointers to Maitreya, Buddha of the future.42 But we cannot be sure that the stone pagodas of Wutaishan that were reported to the empress followed this format, and by the time that we get another report on their existence a couple of decades later they had evidently fallen into disrepair, so that though they still could be seen as late as the midninth century, we learn nothing further of their form or function.43 All we can say is that the creation of multiple miniature pagodas was a practice for which the empress would have had Chinese imperial precedents by 662. There is no record of her immediately setting out to emulate this feat, but there is a 40   Fayuan zhulin 14, p. 393a11–13, which mentions ‘several thousand’ of these pagodas with discernible wen on them, and 39, p. 596a11–12, which again speaks of discernible carving. We shall return to the other monuments of Wutaishan in due course. 41  These stone pagodas are briefly discussed with references to earlier scholarship as part of an overall survey of the distinctive Buddhist culture of the Northern Liang on pp. 71–72 of Susanne Juhl, ‘Cultural Exchange in Northern Liang’ in Søren Clausen, Roy Starrs and Anne Wedell-Wedellsborg, Cultural Encounters: China, Japan, and the West (Aarhus: Aarhus University Press, 1995), pp. 55–82; a more recent and detailed survey in Chinese may be found in the second part of the article by Liu Shufen introduced below, n. 61. 42  Yin Guangming, ‘Bei Liang shita shang de Yijing bagua yu qi Fo yi Mile zaoxiang’, Dunhuang yanjiu 57.1 (1997), pp. 81–89. 43  For the next report, of 679, see Huixiang, Gu Qingliang zhuan, A, p. 1094a 11, in edition of Taishō Canon, vol.51, no. 2098. For the mid-ninth century, cf. Reischauer, Ennin’s Diary, pp. 239, 243. For the Chinese literature on Wutaishan I have for ease of reference cited the Taishō editions, but have also consulted the annotated versions of Chen Yangjiong and Feng Qiaoying, Gu Qingliang zhuan, Guang Qingliang zhuan, Xu Qingliang zhuan (Taiyuan: Shanxi renmin chubanshe, 1989).

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record in the earliest surviving work to describe Wutaishan in detail, datable to 679, suggesting that she was interested in propagating knowledge of these miniature stūpas, and of the wonderful world of Wutai in general. For she at least permitted, or more likely encouraged, the compiler of her official report to issue a brief summary of his findings, accompanying a small map, which was apparently widely disseminated in the metropolitan area.44 As the proof of the acceptability of a part of her sickly husband’s domain as the dwelling place of a bodhisattva this document would surely have been a useful tool in the propaganda of legitimation which seems to have constantly preoccupied the couple. Naturally we tend to think of such matters in Confucian terms in China, but during this period in Chinese history quite different approaches to the demonstration of the right to rule had already been tried out by other regimes, most famously by the Sui dynasty, which had immediately preceded the Tang, and the southern Liang dynasty, organizers and arbiters of much of the elite cultural heritage that the Tang had taken over. As we shall see, there is every reason to suppose that the empress would have had at least some of these precedents in mind.45 8

The Empress and the Chinese Buddhist Heritage

For by 668, she would have had potentially at her disposal a source of information not only recapitulating the notable Buddhist events we have mentioned so far for her joint reign with her husband, but providing also a great deal of other items relevant to our topic as well. This was the Fayuan zhulin, on which we have relied not only for our account of Wang Xuance’s last mission but also for its descriptions of the mission to investigate the Famensi and to survey Wutaishan. The Fayuan zhulin is a large encyclopaedia compiled by Daoshi, a monk who worked in a large metropolitan monastery founded by the husband of the empress.46 It bears a preface by a layman, a fairly obscure bureaucrat of the day, but one who was used as a calligrapher by the emperor at one point, 44  Huixiang, Gu Qingliang zhuan, A, p. 1098c16–17; the line preceding this passage makes quite clear the agency of the empress in arranging the investigative mission, as would have been natural to someone writing in 679. 45  For a very general account of Chinese kingship which at last begins to do justice to these alternatives, see Julia Ching, Mysticism and kingship in China (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), pp. 206–234. 46  For this important source, see S. F. Teiser, ‘T’ang Buddhist Encyclopedias: An Introduction to the Fa-yüan chu-lin and Chu-ching yao-chi’, T’ang Studies 3 (1985), pp. 109–128.

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and so was presumably known to him.47 Anyone with the leisure to read all of it would, one suspects, gain a remarkable knowledge of seventh-century Chinese Buddhism and its sources. Whether its original readers included the empress we simply cannot tell, though it is not impossible. Had she picked it up, she could have learned of a sūtra already translated which described the manufacture of minature pagodas with tiny Buddha images inside ‘as big as a myrobalan’—a fruit particularly associated with Aśoka.48 She could have read of rediscovered Aśokan stūpas not only in China, but further afield in Korea and Japan.49 And she could have studied in detail the attempts made by the preceding Sui dynasty to emulate Aśoka by distributing relics across the empire—and by request yet further, to the kingdoms of the Korean peninsula—by the dozen, rather than the thousand.50 This last information, moreover, she may well have picked up already in any case, for the former rulers of the Sui, the Yang family, had married one of their lesser female family members to a military man who had been one of the first to abandon the dynasty when it failed and support the nascent power of the Tang dynasty. This man’s reward was to see his own daughter received into the imperial harem, the very same daring young woman who was to become the Empress Wu—and, ironically, to break the power of the narrow elite that had dominated China through several changes of regime. The members of that elite, of course, hated her and resented her power, so that had she not demonstrated an unrivalled efficiency in using it to the good of the dynasty she would soon have perished at the hands of her enemies. The main task that confronted the dynasty, now in its third reign, was the perpetuation of power won by force of arms, and it was for this reason therefore, as much as because of the unimpressive physical state of her husband already alluded to, that questions of ideology and the more abstract justification of power loomed large. Under such circumstances it was necessary to go beyond 47  Cen Zhongmian, Jinshi luncong (Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe, 1981), pp. 97–99. 48   Fayuan zhulin 37, pp. 580c–581a; cf. Strong, Legend, pp. 90–91. 49   Fayuan zhulin 38, pp. 584c–589a (with Japan and Korea mentioned in the last two frames). 50   Fayuan zhulin 40, pp. 602b–604a1—the last frame gives the precise reference to the distribution to the Korean kingdoms; Arthur F. Wright, ‘The Formation of Sui Ideology, 581–604’, in John K. Fairbank, ed., Chinese Thought and Institutions (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1957), pp. 71–104, sets this episode in its larger context. I am also deeply indebted to Chen Jinhua for sending me a copy of his major unpublished monograph, ‘Śarira, Sceptre and Staff: Tanqian in Sui Buddhism and Politics’, which constitutes an excellent reconsideration of the entire enterprise. In particular Chen includes an appendix containing a full translation of the original documents, as preserved in another seventh century compilation which again could have been read by the empress.

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currying the support of the elite in order to seek the goodwill of as large a section of society as possible. Now, as it happens, for reasons not yet fully understood the late sixth century and the seventh were in China—and possibly further afield—an age of unusual doubt and anxiety, expressed in Buddhist circles in the notion of the ‘decline of the dharma’. This was in itself not a new analysis of the bleak prospects for Buddhism as the memory of the appearance of the Buddha himself in our world faded into an ever more remote past, but it was certainly an analysis that gained renewed strength at this time.51 And the word analysis is perhaps the wrong one in any case: the feelings of which I speak seem to have been much more visceral and deep seated than anything susceptible to intellectual analysis. What everyone craved was the reassurance of a form of spiritual presence, an affirmative sense of the immediacy of spiritual power.52 9

The Empress and her Translators

It is against such a background, of course, that we must understand the interest of emperor and empress in relics. In the short term, however, a non-Buddhist solution to the question of spiritual presence probably tended to occupy more of their time. For the Tang ruling house claimed descent from Laozi, founder of Taoism, who in current belief occupied a position of cosmic power every bit on a par with the most uplifting Mahāyānist conceptions of Buddhahood. Alleged divine descent was not a novelty in China, but the potency of the particular connexion was obviously well worth exploiting, and I have described elsewhere how this was done.53 The empress herself, of course, could not claim divine descent in the same way, but the Taoist religion affords plenty of scope for divine motherhood, as she was evidently quick to appreciate.

51  Jan Nattier, Once Upon a Future Time (Berkeley, California: Asian Humanities Press, n.d., reprint of Nanzan Institute for Religion and Culture, 1991), pp. 110–118, reexamines the notion that sixth century Hephthalite persecutions of Buddhism prompted the formulation of a new timetable of decline, which in conclusion here and on p. 136–7 is designated an East Asian concept. The sources she cites, such as studies by P. Magnin and James Hubbard, however, show that from the start it was an extremely powerful one. 52  Collins, Nirvana, pp. 24–5, cautions against reading Christian presuppositions into this, though Chinese presuppostions were probably somewhat less distant from Christian ones than the South Asian modes of thinking which he explains later (reference in n. 11 above). 53  T. H. Barrett, Taoism Under the T’ang (London: Wellsweep, 1996), pp. 29–40.

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Where this could no longer work as a preferred solution was, of course, a situation in which a rift had developed between mother and sons, and where the empress wished to act not as a mother but as a person in her own right. This, as I have already mentioned, is exactly what happened after the death of her husband, especially during the late 680s. It was surely at this point that the Buddhist answers to the problems of spiritual presence once more rose up her agenda—whence they had probably never been omitted, in that Buddhism seems to have had a somewhat firmer grip on the sentiments of the population of China than Taoism, which had been late in developing such institutions as a full-time celibate clergy on the Buddhist model, whereas the Buddhist saṅgha undoubtedly had played a major role in propagating the Indian religion in East Asia. Nor had contacts with India ceased: in the final years of her husband’s life, and in the years that followed, monks continued to arrive with new sources on Indian Buddhism. Many of these late seventh century missionaries have been studied by Antonino Forte in a number of widely scattered articles, which bring out some intriguing features less evident at other periods. For example, the new dynasty had been quite successful in extending its control into Inner Asia along the trade routes which either carried through to Iran or turned south through Kashmir into India, the area termed by Sir Aurel Stein ‘Serindia’, and this intermediate zone in due course produced once more learned monks familiar with both cultures and their languages. Whereas in principle an original text in an Indian language had been to the Chinese an obvious guarantee of Buddhist orthodoxy, whatever suspicions modern scholars now harbour about the products of the intermediate Serindian zone, during this period we find at least one clear example of an Indian at the court of the empress who in 693 was able to include panegyrics in Sanskrit on her behalf into a Buddhist composition and then translate the piece into Chinese.54 The Japanese scholar Osabe Kazuo, who has carried out a very useful study of the importation of new forms of Tantric Buddhism during the ascendancy of the empress also points out that several of these translations include what he loosely calls ‘Taoist’ elements, 54  Antonino Forte, ‘Hui-chih (fl. 676–703 ad), a Brahmin Born in China’, Annali dell’ Istituto Universitario Orientale 45 (1983), pp. 105–134. For an earlier example of what must be taken as a Serindian product incorporating ideas from both cultures, see the research of Nobuyoshi Yamabe as reported on p. 6 of Valerie Hansen, ‘The Silk Road Project: Returning Turfan’s Scattered Treasures’, Revue Bibliographique de Sinologie, n.s. 17 (1999), pp. 63–73. For a survey of the special significance of the area to the emergence of Tantrism for East Asia, see Todd Gibson, ‘Inner Asian Contributions to the Vajrayāna’, Indo-Iranian Journal 38 (1995), pp. 1–21.

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that is, expressions which would seem more at home in a Chinese rather than an Indian religious environment.55 Such a tailoring of translation to their audience likewise suggests to me the presence at least of bilingual intermediaries with a very keen political sense of the advantages of deliberately slanting Buddhist texts towards a potential Chinese readership. This makes me wonder in particular about another translation concerning the benefits of making images of the Buddha, carried out by a monk from Khotan in Serindia, Devendraprajña, in 691, who has also been the subject of an article by Forte.56 For this text seems to make a point of stressing the benefits of making Buddha images for women in particular, and despite the evidence that some authors adduce for an Indian background to such notions, one cannot help wondering to what extent it may have been written ad feminam.57 10

The Empress and the ‘Crowning Glory’

Both the specific examples I have cited actually relate to a later phase in the career of the empress (or emperor, to use the male title she had assumed by that point) when, as we shall see, Forte’s research has shown that in any case interpolations on her behalf may be plainly detected in one key translation. The phenomenon is mentioned here because it throws a cautionary backward light over the next episode that concerns us, namely the multiple translation and dissemination of the Uṣnīṣa-vijaya-dhāraṇī, in Chinese the Foding zun­ sheng tuoluoni jing, later as personified as a goddess and translated into English as ‘Crowning Victory’. In this form, which does not concern us here, ‘Crowning Victory’ has been shown by Rob Linrothe to have been the focus of a considerable cult in Tangut territory during the twelfth century, leading to the imperial printing and distribution of thousands of texts and images.58 55  Osabe Kazuo, Tō-Sō mikkkyōshi ronkō (Kobe: Kobe Joshi Daigaku, 1982), pp. 1–33. We shall return to Osabe’s observations below in due course. 56   On this monk and his translations, see Antonino Forte, ‘Le Moine Khotanais Devendraprajña’, Bulletin de l’École française d’Extrême-Orient 66 (1979), pp. 289–297. 57  Note Zao xiang gongde jing A, p. 795b and especially 795c1–3, in edition of Taishō Canon, 16, no. 604. For some surprising material on women and image dedication in early Buddhism, see Schopen, Bones, stones, and Buddhist monks, pp. 248–250; for women and stūpas in Indian materials, see e.g. Sugimoto Takushū, Indo Buttō no kenkyū (Kyoto: Heirakuji shoten, 1984), pp. 414–418. 58  See p. 96 of Rob Linrothe, ‘Xia Renzong and the Patronage of Tangut Buddhist Art: The Stūpa and Ushinīshavijayā Cult’, Journal of Sung-Yuan Studies 28 (1998), pp. 91–121. The

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There is certainly no doubt that the Indian practice of combining text and stūpa to provide a site for relic worship in the fashion illuminated by Boucher became known in 680, for he renders into English a short work translated in that year which describes as before the creation of minature pagodas as big as a myrobalan, but makes quite clear that now they might hold as relics the four-line verse on causality that is the object of his research.59 There is also no doubt at all that the ‘Crowning Victory’ text was also transmitted to East Asia at much the same time, for an actual Sanskrit manuscript of the text apparently dating to the seventh century survives to this day in Japan.60 What is less clear to me at present, pending the researches of other scholars, is the chronology not simply of the translation but of the dissemination of this key text, though we do already possess a number of useful studies relating to it, including an excellent two part article in Chinese by Liu Shufen.61 It would seem fairly certain, at least, that a translation, perhaps a revision of earlier work done in 679, was made in 682 by the translator already responsible for the 680 text examined by Boucher.62 The date is given in the surviving preface by Yanzong, biographer of Xuanzang, and the text, while not identical with later translations, makes clear that one of the functions of the dhāraṇī was to turn any stūpa containing it into a relic site.63 The problem arises with the text which bears the name of Buddhapāli, for here we are dependent on an undated preface by one Zhijing, which appears to have been written shortly after 689, that is, during the very period when the empress was moving towards abandoning the Tang dynasty to rule in her own right.64 Zhijing claims to have references given in this article are extremely useful for an understanding of much of the imagery with which we are dealing here, even though they refer to a later stage in the development of the cult concerned. I have also borrowed Linrothe’s translation of the title of our text, more for its succinctness than its literal accuracy. 59  Boucher, ‘Cult of the Relics’, pp. 8–10. 60  Linrothe, ‘Xia Renzong’, p. 97, n. 20. 61  Liu Shufen, ‘Foding zunsheng tuoluoni jing yu Tangdai zunsheng jingchuan de jianli: jingchuang yanjiu zhi yi’ and ‘Jingchuang de xingzhi, xingzhi he laiyuan: jingchuang zhi yanjiu er’, Zhongyang yanjiuyuan lishi yuyan yanjiusuo jikan 67.1 (1996), pp. 145–193, and 68.3 (1997), pp. 643–786, respectively. 62  For whom see Antonino Forte, ‘Divākara (613–688), un monaco indiano nella Cina dei T’ang’, Annali della Facoltà di lingue e letterature straniere di Ca’ Foscari, 13.3 (1974), pp. 135– 174. A convenient survey of the ‘Crowning Victory’ translations of this period by Misaki Ryōshū may be found in Makita Tairyō and Fukui Fumimasa, eds., Tonkō to Chūgoku Bukkyō (Tokyo: Daitō shuppansha, 1984), pp. 115–129. 63   Foding zuisheng tuoluoni jing, (no. 969), pp. 355b, 356b–c, in Taishō Canon, vol.19. 64   Foding zuisheng tuoluoni jing (no. 967), pp. 349b–c, in ibidem.

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obtained his information from Divākara, the translator of the 682 version, who had conveniently died in 688, but early in the next century it was already noted by a normally well-informed but discreet bibliographer that his chronology of events is somewhat awry.65 Whatever the actual truth of the matter, the story given by Zhijing became extremely widely known, and is even depicted in a small surviving sketch of the Tang period, while the text concerned eclipsed all other translations in popularity.66 And no wonder, for Zhijing states that in 676 Buddhapāli had travelled from India to prostrate himself at Wutaishan, declaring that since the Buddha’s decease all other spiritual beings were hidden; only the bodhisattva Mañjuśrī in these mountains continued the Buddha’s work, and that therefore, since he had always regretted living in an age without a Buddha, he had crossed the shifting sands in the hope of a meeting. He looks up, of course, to see an old man approaching, who congratulates him on his earnestness, but points out that China is deeply encumbered by bad karma, and that the saṅgha there is none too observant; only the ‘Crowning Victory’ text can overcome these defects. Buddhapāli confesses that he has not brought a copy with him, to which the old man replies that in that case there is no point in meeting Mañjuśrī; he had better go back and get it, to distribute in China and remedy the situation; only then will his interlocutor tell him the whereabouts of the bodhisattva. The Indian returns, and reports back again in 683 with the text to the emperor, who commissions others, including Divākara, to translate it, and keeps it in the palace, giving Buddhapāli a reward. This he responds to by saying that he is not in the translation business for the money or fame, but had hoped to benefit sentient beings. The emperor hands back the Sanskrit original, which Buddhapāli has translated with permission outside court circles at the monastery where Daoshi had lived, after which he takes it off to Wutaishan, never to be seen again, leaving both translations to circulate. Later in 687 Zhijing meets up with Divākara, who goes over both translations with him, paying particular attention to the pronunciation of the Sanskrit, so as to come up with a definitive version. It is obvious both that this story raises problems concerning the earlier translations and that the emperor, who in 683 was still her ailing husband, does not come out of this very well—indeed, he is guilty of wishing to keep a text of 65  Zhisheng, Kaiyuan Shijiao lu 9, p. 565b5–8, in Taishō Canon, vol.55, no. 2154. 66  For the sketch, see pp. 96–7 and the reproduction of the ms. P. 4049 p. 98 of Zhao Shengliang, ‘Mogaoku di 61 ku Wutaishan tu yanjiu’, Dunhuang yanjiu 37.4 (1993), pp. 88– 107; for the popularity of this version of the text, see the survey by Misaki cited above, n. 62.

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potential mass benefit to the nation to himself. This was no doubt a very convenient thing to emerge just as the empress, rapidly abandoning her recently assumed role of Holy Mother, found it expedient to be done with husband, children and with Taoism, the cult of the Li family, and started looking overtly to Buddhism to legitimate her undisguised personal rule. The story might even provide a convenient excuse to cover her own relative neglect of Buddhism while exploring Taoist options. And while tales of Indians coming to worship at Wutaishan may already be found in the text of 679 to which we have already alluded, the clearly articulated notion that only China now gave any prospect of contact with an important bodhisattva must be seen as consistent with the attitudes towards sacred space already displayed by the empress. One hopes that future research may uncover more details concerning Zhijing. All we can say at present is that two other monks associated with the dissemination of the ‘Crowning Victory’ text, Xinggan and Bolun, have been identified by Professor Forte as close supporters of the empress in her ideological manoeuvres at this crucial time.67 But there is one more point to be made about the ‘Crowning Victory’. The Buddhapāli version recommends dissemination by four methods, and besides the use of writing on clay or paper that we have already mentioned, three of them are epigraphic, in the sense that they require writing upon hard surfaces such as walls, mountains and pillars. The latter means of dissemination has attracted the most attention, since epigraphers have found many examples providing excellent examples of the highly regarded calligraphy of the Tang.68 This should perhaps not surprise us, when the text itself claims that the very shadow of a pillar bearing its words, the very least particle of dust blown from its surface, could cause the removal of bad karma from anyone within range.69 But the assiduous research of Liu Shufen has established that the multitude of pillars found cannot be regarded simply as equivalents to the other Tang period steles whence epigraphers are wont to take copies of such materials for other reasons. Thus it is certainly quite possible that the Empress Wu was alive to the wider symbolism of these new structures, in terms of what has been seen as the association between the pillars of Aśoka, the stūpa form, and the notion of an axis mundi, for an immense octagonal obelisk known as the Axis of the Sky 67  Forte, Political Propaganda, p. 99. 68  Note the survey by Du Weisheng in Xu Ziqiang, Beijing tushuguan cang shike xulu (Beijing: Shumu wenxian chubanshe, 1988), pp. 176–187, of calligraphic materials in his institution collected from pillars featuring this dhāraṇī. 69  Taishō Canon 19, p. 351b.

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was later one of the glories of her capital.70 For our purposes, however, it is more immediately significant that to Liu, the format of the pillars on which the ‘Crowning Victory’ text was transcribed shows unambiguously that they also served as stūpas containing the dharma-body of the Buddha—in short, that the practice already described of inserting text within to serve as a relic was in an important sense the primary purpose of the new form.71 This, indeed, may explain why they became so popular (for example under the Liao dynasty) in memorial contexts.72 And Liu shows, too, that whatever the true story of the arrival of the text, the earliest dated version of a pillar dedicated to it is 689.73 In this way the Buddhapāli story enhanced the appeal of Wutaishan, trump card of the empress in the Buddho-Taoist struggle over sacred space, and at the same time encouraged the spread across the landscape of a new sanctifying device suitable for local erection which did not require any investment from the state.74 11

The Empress Moves to Centre Stage

This means that this new form of stūpa had started to spread before the empress finally plumped for Buddhist forms of legitimation and founded her own, personal dynasty, the Zhou, in 690.75 It is interesting to note the role played by images and stūpas in the process of legitimation. Forte’s very thorough study of this crucial phase in the career of the empress has uncovered the fact that for all the subsequent discussion of the part played by a work known as the 70  Antonino Forte, Mingtang and Buddhist Utopias in the History of the Astronomical Clock (Rome: Istituto Italiano per il Medio ed Estremo Oriente, 1988), pp. 233–243; the final page suggests the Aśokan link. See also e.g. Sugimoto, Indo Buttō, for more on the wider symbolism. 71  Liu Shufen, ‘Jingchuang de xingzhi’. 72  Its relative dominance over other texts in this role during the Liao, at least in epigraphic situations, may be seen from Chen Shu, comp. and ed., Liao wen cun (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1982), juan 9–12, pp. 220, 224, 230, 240, 245, 257, 280, 297, 305, 307, 314, 318, 324, 348, etc. 73  Liu’s table at the end of the second part of the study, ‘Jingchuang de xingzhi’, cites the date from a brief mention of this monument in a report entitled ‘Shaanxi suojian de Tangdai jingchuang’, Wenwu 1959, 8, pp. 29–30. 74  This is explained by Liu’s earlier article in English, already cited above in n. 14, which stresses not simply the benefits to the central state but also to local elites that might derive from the erection of Buddhist structures in rural society. 75  Barrett, Taoism Under the T’ang, p. 42.

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Great Cloud (Mahāmegha) Sūtra, a completely undeniable interpolation supporting the empress in another Buddhist text, the Rain of Jewels (Ratnamegha) Sūtra, has been generally overlooked. This equally important prophecy of female rule produced in 693 reads in part ‘May you practise the Ten Good Rules, apply my Law, magnify and maintain it, and erect stūpas and temples’.76 Two sentences later this spurious prophecy further announces that ‘Your name will be Yuejingguang, Pure Moonlight’, which very much reinforces the same point. For Erik Zürcher has shown that here there is a deliberate reference to the messianic figure Prince Moonlight, the subject of an earlier spurious prophecy to the Sui ancestors of the empress, which he translates: ‘He will patronise Buddhism on a grandiose scale, notably by the reproduction and spread of holy texts, the making of Buddha images of every kind, and the establishment of Buddha sanctuaries in all parts of the empire’.77 In the original ‘reproduction’ does not plainly signify printing, but ‘sanctuary’ does stand for stūpa. And if the empress felt obliged to fulfil this prophecy as assiduously as the Sui had done, then she had plenty to do, for we know from the Fayuan zhulin that they had financed the (evidently purely manual) creation of literally hundreds of thousands of volumes of sūtras, probably well over half a million in total, to say nothing of 20,358 images.78 What better response could there be to the fear, quite apparent in Chinese Buddhist and Taoist circles, that with the onset of final, irreversible religious decline, pending the appearance of a supernatural figure with the power to renew all things, all sūtras and other relics would disappear from this world?79 In Buddhist circles, moreover, we do not have to rely simply on a few scattered prophetic utterances to gauge the profound insecurity that afflicted 76  Forte, Political Propaganda, p. 130. 77  Erik Zürcher, on pp. 25–27 of ‘Prince Moonlight’, T’oung pao 68 (1982), pp. 1–75, citing Taishō Canon, vol.14, no. 545, p. 849. 78   Fayuan zhulin 100, p. 1026b4, gives the precise figures for the first reign alone of ‘46 canons, 132,086 volumes’: these two figures cannot be equivalents, since the contemporary canon contained six thousand and ninety-eight volumes, according to the standard history compiled by seventh century scholars, Sui shu 35 (Beijing; Zhonghua shuju, 1973), p. 1095. We should also add in some more for the second reign, though the figures given for this in the Fayuan zhulin would appear only to cover volumes conserved, not new products. It is all in all no wonder that this Sui shu bibliography chapter concludes (p. 1099) that the Buddhist literature in circulation at this time, thanks to popular emulation of the state’s productivity, outweighed the Confucian classics by a factor of ‘several tens of hundreds’. 79  The original, less threatening form of this ancient doctrine is explained in Collins, Nirvana, pp. 247–8; cf. Zürcher, ‘Prince Moonlight’, p. 28, for much more profound Chinese pessimism at this point.

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Chinese civilization in the late sixth and seventh centuries over the future of its sacred texts. Ample testimony still survives in the form of the impressive number of sūtras that from this time on started to be carved out of the mountain stone of north China in the explicit hope that this durable medium would outlast the decline that was bound to come. The first efforts in this vein date to the Northern Qi dynasty of the late sixth century, and focus in particular on texts associated with the ‘decline of the dharma’.80 But by Tang times the massive project to carve the whole canon in the form that now survives at Fangshan was already under way, and both the contemporary reports and a surviving inscription in situ explaining the aim of the project make it perfectly plain that the same motivation inspired this remarkable feat as well.81 So it was not in the hope of gaining more reading materials that printing spread in China, but rather in the fear that what they had to read and to value—in some quantity, one might add, on the evidence from the Sui period—might not last. Against any objective account of the rude good health of East Asian manuscript culture we may dismiss this fear as entirely illusory, but it was nevertheless a political fact, and one which the empress needed to turn to her own purposes. Ideally, too, in her campaign (as revealed by the ‘Crowning Glory’ preface) to contrast her own inclusivism with the exclusive, ‘divine kingship’ model of legitimation favoured by her Tang in-laws, she needed to make the sacred available in a mass way more easy of access than texts carved in or on distant mountains.

80  The most recent research into the phenomenon is that contained in Kegasawa Yasunori, ed., Chūgoku Bukkyō sekkyō no kenkyū (Kyoto: Kyoto University, 1996), which has English summaries of relevant chapters on pp. 495–498: see also pp. 108–131 for a full survey in Japanese of the beliefs involved, by Odani Nakao. For an earlier assessment of the stone scriptures of the Northern Qi, see Yagi Sentai, ‘Hokusei no kokkyō ni tsuite’, Indogaku Bukkyōgaku kenkyū 27.1 (1978), pp. 128–9. 81  Apart from the work of Kegasawa, mentioned in the preceding note, it is also possible to consult an English translation of a contemporary description from the Mingbao ji of Tang Lin in Donald E. Gjertson, Miraculous Retribution (Berkeley: Centers for South and Southeast Asian Studies, 1989), pp. 165–166, and a preliminary account of recent research by Lewis Lancaster, ‘The Rock-cut Canon in China: Findings at Fang-shan’, in T. Skorupski, ed., The Buddhist Heritage (Tring: The Institute of Buddhist Studies, 1989), pp. 143–156: note in particular the inscription mentioned on p. 147 at n. 13.

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1689

The Empress Plays Aśoka

As it happens, we can be quite sure that by the time that the empress made her move to set up her own dynasty, she had taken on another role, one which we have seen her toying with even in the early days of her ascendancy, and one in which the mass distribution of potent symbols from the centre to the periphery formed the most important characteristic. For her propagandists state, in their commentary on the Great Cloud Sūtra, a text only rediscovered in this century, that she had already acquired through an auspicious discovery in her capital more than ten thousand relics. To judge by sources located by Forte in his translation of this work, this had taken place in 677, though their ideological use seems to have been delayed until after her husband’s death, till 684, when the omen was associated with the renaming of Luoyang as a ‘holy capital’ (shendu) and other reforms in adminstrative nomenclature.82 This delay in itself is worth remarking, and not only in view of what we have already said with regard to the ‘Crowning Victory’ concerning the contrast she seems to have been at pains to spell out between her husband’s implied desire to keep Buddhist blessings to himself and her own conspicuous commitment to distributing them. For at the same time, as one expert on her reign has already pointed out, her measures of 684 may well have been prompted by the appearance of a Buddhist ‘false messiah’ and the consequent need to anticipate further popular charlatans by taking on a messianic role herself— another theme already touched upon that we will need to explore further.83 For our immediate purposes, however, the most significant information added by the propaganda team of 690 is that in a former incarnation the empress had vowed to construct ten times the number of pagodas (that is, reliquaries) made by Aśoka himself, and further that by the time that they were writing she had already distributed the relics of 677 to the ‘Four Continents’. The last phrase can only mean that she had already taken on an international Aśokan role by sending at least some of the relics overseas.84 Given that they would therefore have been contained in pagodas of a portable size for transport, a definite historical antecedent for the later Japanese distribution of thousands of relics inside small wooden pagodas becomes immediately

82  Forte, Political Propaganda, p. 202, nn. 112, 113; cf. Sima Guang, Zizhi tongjian 203 (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1959), p. 6421. 83  R. W. L. Guisso, Wu Tse-t’ien and the Politics of Legitimation in T’ang China (Bellingham, Washington: Western Washington University, 1978), p. 35. 84  Forte, Political Propaganda, p. 203; cf. pp. 208, 269.

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apparent, no matter what it was that justified the Japanese ruler’s use of relics in printed, textual form. We can unfortunately expect no confirmation of this in non-Chinese records. The recently formed Japanese centralized state produced its earliest surviving historical works soon after the Empress Wu’s reign. But it remained too concerned with its own international standing to mention either in its accounts of the late seventh century or in describing its own later eighth century relic distributions the receipt of any relics from China, for this could well be construed as an acknowledgement of the Aśokan status of the empress, and hence of their subordination. Later Korean sources are much more free in describing relics in the Korean peninsula as being of Chinese origin, but nothing of particular relevance to the empress appears to be contained in them, and unfortunately no documentary sources now survive from the seventh or eighth centuries that might provide more useful information.85 The best that can be said is that Chinese diplomatic records for 681 and 693 detail contacts that could have allowed for a transfer of relics to the newly unified Korea to have taken place.86 Equally there is nothing to show in this case either that relics in three dimensional, solid form were accompanied to Korea by textual relics, whether printed or in manuscript. But here, as we shall see, the evidence of archaeology, unknown until the late twentieth century, does allow us to conclude that by 706 at the latest in Korea both three dimensional and textual relics were used in conjunction—and in the latter case, the text in question was so newly translated that it must have been deliberately distributed by the central authorities in China, whether at the behest of the empress herself or of her successor. And it must be stressed that there is plenty of evidence, some of which we shall review shortly, to show that the empress continued to be obsessed with relics and stūpas for the rest of her reign. In the light of what has been said, however, concerning the particular anxieties over the loss of text and the prophetic messages promising messianic renewal of the textual resources available, it is absurd to do as some have done and imagine her to be the victim of some peculiarly anile form of religious fervour, preoccupied with doubtful tokens of sanctity. As we have discovered already, in the apocalyptic atmosphere that had prevailed since the sixth century it was vital for any ruler to be able to preempt the messianic longings of the masses and pose as the very 85  For Korean traditions on the importation of relics as they existed at a much later point, see Iryŏn (1206–1289), Samguk yusa, 3, pp. 993a–c, in edition of Taishō Canon, vol. 49, no. 2039. 86  Wang Qinruo, Cefu yuangui, (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1960), 964.9b, 10a.

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embodiment of utopian prophecies—as Aśoka redivivus, Maitreya, or anyone else, all at the same time, the more the merrier, in accordance with the same ‘belt and braces’ principle that suggested, as we have just noted, the use of both textual and solid relics at the same time.87 So pious in her way the empress may have been, but it was power that she really understood—power, and the role of propaganda in securing and diligently upholding it. 13

Once More the Empress and India

It is therefore against this background, and particularly against the chronology of her quite unique efforts at legitimating female rule that I would understand the apparently offhand remark by Yijing about printing on paper in India. Following the research of Wang Bangwei, I note that Yijing returned briefly to China in 689, just when questions of Buddhist legitimation became crucial, allegedly by accident when a ship he was visiting cast off and set sail. He then returned to the world of normative Buddhism that was supposed to exist beyond China—though only to Southeast Asia, not India—and in 691 was able to send his authoritative account of his observations thence to the empress, before returning himself the next year. He is certainly quite explicit about his aim in this work about helping his ruler achieve the goal of a Buddhist Utopia.88 We can now see exactly how printing on paper would have played a part in achieving that. But there is one more aspect of Yijing’s account of India that bears indirectly upon printing which has not been remarked before, but which nevertheless merits some discussion. For in another text written at the same time and sent back to China, he remarks equally casually that a monk who had been sent to India on a mission by the husband of the empress had ‘taken a printed 87  Note that on pp. 136–7 of Kang Le, ‘Zhuanlunwang guannian yu Zhongguo zhonggu de Fojiao zhengzhi’, Zhongyang yanjiuyuan yuyan lishi yanjiusuo jikan 67.1 (1996), pp. 109–143, the measures taken by the empress in 693, which included the assumption of a title embodying a claim to universal monarchy of the Aśokan type, is seen as the culmination of Chinese trends conflating the separate ‘world-ruler, world-renouncer’ categories of South Asian thought. The best study of what the ideologists employed by the empress actually did, however, is still Forte, Political Propaganda, the third chapter of which teases out exactly how popular belief in a messianic Maitreya figure was preempted by having the empress take on this role within safe limits. For an earlier example of a ‘pre-incarnation’ of Maitreya, see Hsiao Bea-hui, ‘Two Images of Maitreya: Fu Hsi and Pu-tai Ho-shang’, PhD dissertation, SOAS, 1995. 88  Barrett, ‘I-ching’, pp. 149, 150.

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impression from’ (qu qi yinwen) a skullbone of the Buddha, possibly the very one that was later conveyed to China, to divine his future.89 The reference is explained once again by consulting Xuanzang, who describes in more detail how at another relic site a paste spread on a cloth was used to take an impression of the bone in question, again for the purpose of fortune telling.90 Evidently the practice was well enough known by Yijing’s time not to require explanation. The terminology obviously overlaps with that of printing, reminding us that the Chinese use of rubbings can be dated to a stage not long before the invention of the print technology we are considering: though (as experts have pointed out in the past) the two techniques do differ; in some ways, rubbing is much closer to printing than stamping with a seal-like object.91 But if taking an impression of a text could be seen in the same auspicious light as taking one from a relic, this would explain how a printed object could nevertheless be invested with a borrowed sanctity, for otherwise, in the case of copying, the sanctity of the text was very much understood as a product of the correct behaviour of the copyist, as contemporary sources attest.92 What we cannot see is any immediate evidence of the empress putting Yijing’s new and useful snippets of information into practice. Though a number of factors may be involved, the main reason for this probably lies in the extremely hostile attitude taken towards the empress by our standard historical sources, which are overwhelmingly conventional (or, if you wish, Confucian) in tone, and typically exercise their revenge against her assault on patriarchy by simply ignoring much of what she did. One day, perhaps, some chance discovery may illuminate her work, just as a chance discovery among the Dunhuang manuscripts, S.2713, dated to 670, shows the otherwise unknown popular expectations of apocalypse which she had to outbid with her presentation of her own messianic claims in order to calm the outbreak of wilder imaginings amongst her subjects through a judicious doctrine of ‘realized eschatology’. In this short text, the Buddha Dīpaṃkara predicts that Mount Tai is about to collapse, releasing tens of thousands of devils upon the land, and that in the 89  See Wang Bangwei, ed., Da Tang Xiyu qiufa gaoseng zhuan jiaozhu (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1983), p. 11, and cf. Liu, Silk and Religion, pp. 34, 42. 90  Beal, Si-yu-ki, p. 96, and more fully, Life of Hiuen-Tsiang, p. 59. 91  For both techniques in the background to printing, see Li Shuhua, ‘Yinzhang yu muta de qiyuan ji qi duiyu diaoban yinshua faming zhi yingxiang’, Zhongyang yanjiuyuan lishi yuyan yanjiusuo jikan 28 (1957), pp. 107–121. 92  Most notably in a story known in several versions in the seventh century and later, translated e.g. by Gjertson, Miraculous Retribution, pp. 162–3, in which a copyist is obliged to spend eight years in isolation in order to produce a particularly efficacious transcription of the Lotus Sūtra.

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fourth month on the fifth day of 670 a noxious wind will arise from Mount Tai which can kill in two days; only one copy of the prophecy can save an individual, or two a whole family, or three a whole village.93 It was against the sporadic propagation of just such disturbing visions that a more efficient technology for spreading the supernatural prestige of the monarch had to be directed so as to promote social order and stability. But if the terrifying fears that might grip the wider populace are generally as hidden from us as the solutions that a daring ruler might devise to calm them, at least we can tell something from the moralising of the conventionbound bureaucrats who dominate our sources. Precisely because they hated the empress, their reactive tuttutting involuntarily reveals at least something of her activities relating to relics and other signs of the Buddha’s presence. Thus Antonino Forte has devoted the greater part of a laboriously researched monograph to what is still at times a quite tentative reconstruction from our reluctant witnesses of the programme of building work carried out by the empress in her capital. Pagodas on a small scale, even if in large numbers, may well have escaped their attention—we hear nothing from them of the relic distribution attested by the document of 690 examined above—but the symbolism of metropolitan architecture was something which they felt more strongly about. For the endeavours of the empress in this sphere constituted a no less than startling attempt to equip the centre of her world with gigantic symbolic structures, including one housing a massive Buddhist statue.94 93  The full text of this prophecy, of which the original came in three copies, is printed e.g. in Jiang Liangfu, Mogao ku nianbiao (Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe, 1985), p. 241. For Dīpaṃkara’s emergence as a significant Buddhist figure, see pp. 68–70 of Richard Gombrich, ‘The Significance of Former Buddhas in the Theravādin Tradition’, in Somaratna Balasooriya et al., eds., Buddhist Studies in Honour of Walpola Rahula (London: Gordon Fraser, 1980), pp. 62–72; John Lagerwey, ‘Dingguang gufo: Oral and Written Sources in the Study of a Saint’, Cahiers d’Extrême-Asie 10 (1998), pp. 77–129, shows how the cult of a tenth century thaumaturge who adopted the name Dīpaṃkara has lasted into modern times; Nagai Masayuki, ‘Jōkō butsu shinkō kenkyū shiron’, in Nihon Bukkyō Gakkai, ed., Bukkyō to takyō to no tairon (Kyoto: Heirakuji shoten, 1997), pp. 79–92, uses materials including some overlap with Lagerwey to suggest cogently a belief in hidden reincarnations of Dīpaṃkara, though his invocation of Manichaean influence fails to persuade. 94  Forte, Mingtang and Buddhist Utopias, especially pp. 53 onwards, though the introductory study may also be construed as showing to what lengths Buddhists were prepared to go to compete with their Taoist rivals over sacred space: the visions of a normative ordination platform described relate much more to the use of platforms by Taoists, whereas the original Buddhist tradition was content to mark off ordination areas simply by ropes. Something of the standards which the Taoists set in this regard, on the basis of early

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Ruling through Relics

These structures were the scandal of the age, and that is why a measure of denunciation of them at least survives, whereas her lesser projects are only heard about occasionally, even indirectly, in our conventional sources. But hear about them we do, even so. In 694, for example, penalties for the theft of any form of Buddhist image, public or private, were included with those for ‘great sedition’.95 This was a category of crimes against the symbols of state power, for which the penalty was instant decapitation for the least offense, with the lesser penalty of strangulation merely for conspiring to carry them out.96 In 699 an edict was issued forbidding the incorporation of relics of the Buddha into the annual observances of the Buddhist ‘ghost festival’ in China, as had been done by the monks at one named institution.97 The perceived problem seems to have been that the context—a festival now ably reconstructed by S. F. Teiser— involved treating the decease of the Buddha as an occasion of actual rather than apparent loss.98 The promulgation of an edict suggests that there were fears that this practice might spread, indicating that relics were by this point very widely available, though we should remember that in their manifestation as very small, jewel-like objects (some of which have been on display in London recently in the ‘Gilded Dragons’ exhibition) three-dimensional, solid relics were considered to have had the power of spontaneous multiplication.99 The next year, in 700, the empress was in the Sanyang Palace, a new residence which she had had built on Mount Song, the Central Peak of the Five Sacred Peaks of China, which lay close to her capital. A ‘foreign monk’, whose name our sources do not deign to mention, had persuaded her to stage a imperial ritual, may be gathered from John Lagerwey, ‘Taoist Ritual Space and Dynastic Legitimacy’, Cahiers d’Extrême-Asie 8 (1995), pp. 87–94. 95  Wang Pu, ed., Tang hui yao 41 (Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe, 1991), p. 873. 96  Wallace Johnson, The T’ang Code (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1979), pp. 63–4. 97  Song Minqiu, ed., Tang da zhaoling ji 113 (Shanghai: Shangwu yinshuguan, 1959), p. 587. The given date of this document is the fifth month of 700, but this can only be correct if it was issued at the very start of the month: see Han Lizhou, Tang wen kaobian chubian (Xi’an: Shansi chubanshe, 1992), p. 209; otherwise we must probably assume that a year has been accidentally added, though in either case the month seems curiously disassociated from the timing of the festival. 98  S. F. Teiser, The Ghost Festival in Medieval China (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1988): see pp. 71–77 for a translated description of the event dated to seven years before the edict. 99  Michaelson, Gilded Dragons, p. 146, gives an illustration of these tiny transparent crystals, ‘the size of butter beans’. An example of spontaneous multiplication is given below.

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massive public enshrinement of a relic, but the ceremony was cancelled due to the furious protests of one of her most famous ministers.100 This was Di Renjie (607–700), the model for the sagacious and upright Judge Dee of the Chinese detective novels.101 Di’s objections were not, however, allowed to control events: the year 701, for example, was declared a new era entitled ‘Great Footfall’, when a new footprint of the Buddha was discovered on Chinese territory, and though there are indications that hostile witnesses later tried to put it about that some terrible deception by criminals lay behind this, the most judicious traditional authorities reject that suggestion as betraying internal inconsistencies.102 Footprints of the Buddha were, of course, one of the most dramatic of ‘traces’ showing that those feet did in ancient times walk upon China just as much as India; other examples had already been identified in earlier phases of the ongoing efforts to sanctify Chinese space in Buddhist terms.103 By this time, of course, the empress was about halfway through the last decade of her personal rule, and of her life. Natural vigour and skilful use of cosmetics meant that she was even by the extraordinary standards of her career a rather exceptional old lady—a sort of Mae West figure, but with real pretensions to divinity. To judge from conventional sources, she was mainly engaged towards the end in an attempt to construct one last massive Buddha image. One of her earlier grandiose efforts made of lacquer still survived somehow, even though the structure destined to house it had not reached completion.104 This new statue, however, was to be of bronze, and to stand on a mountain slope to the north of the city. It was to be financed by levying a donation of a single coin from each and every Buddhist monk and nun in her empire, a method which assumes a particular significance because a donation of a single coin was an echo of one of Aśoka’s actions, recorded for example in the Fayuan zhulin.105 100  Wang, Tang hui yao, 227, p. 602. 101  David McMullen, ‘The Real Judge Dee: Ti Jen-chieh and the T’ang Restoration of 705’, Asia Major, 3rd ser., 6.1 (1993), pp. 1–81. 102  Sima Guang, Zizhi tongjian 207, p. 6554. 103  See for examples, and for some background, the article ‘Bussokuseki’, in P. Demiéville, ed., Hōbōgirin, volumes 2–3 (Tokyo: Maison Franco-japonaise, 1930, 1937), pp. 187–190, and n. 9, p. 102, of T. H. Barrett, ‘Exploratory Observations on Some Weeping Pilgrims’, in T. Skorupski, ed., The Buddhist Forum, Vol. i (London: SOAS, 1990), pp. 87–110. Probably the fullest account of the background is Kanai Kasatarō, Bussokuseki no kenkyō (Tokyo: Nakayama shobō, 1971), pp. 238–324, though on the last two pages of this study he seems to take an unduly hostile attitude to the empress and her reign period. 104  Forte, Mingtang and Buddhist Utopias, pp. 82–93. 105  Wang, Tang hui yao 49, p. 1003; Fayuan zhulin 37, p. 579b; cf. Strong, Legend, pp. 254–5.

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Whether they were aware of this or not, her Confucian officials kept up a barrage of protest from the time the plan was first mooted in 700 right the way through to 704, when she finally dropped the idea. Their arguments are in fact utilitarian, that the money could be used to charitable purposes, since this is where the proper purposes of Buddhism lie, not in opulent displays of extravagance. Thus the memorial sent in to her by a complaining bureaucrat that seems finally to have tipped the balance accuses her of ‘making an end of the trees on the mountains in order to create stūpas, exhausting the smelting of metals to make images’.106 We need not take such rhetoric at face value, but it does suggest that the empress had made a good job of keeping up messianic appearances in terms of the goals that had earlier been set for her. 15

Old Age and Mountains: Wutaishan and Taishan

But by this stage we also get hints of another agenda beyond appearances, an agenda yet closer to her heart that we cannot discern in her earlier years. What it was emerges most clearly from a contrast between the attitudes she displayed in her later years towards three of China’s most sacred mountains. We have already remarked on her evident interest in Wutaishan, and it must be said that her signs of interest there were quite public, and demonstrably known to all. Indeed, there are even signs that her well-known munificence in the region gained in the telling over time. For one of our chief sources for Wutaishan in the ninth century, the travel diary of the Japanese monk Ennin, who was there in 840, lists as structures associated with the empress, or ‘Old Woman Wu’ as she was remembered more colloquially, three iron pagodas on the ‘Central Terrace’ of the mountain range; one iron pagoda on the ‘Western Terrace’; and one iron pagoda surrounded by many small stone ones on the ‘Northern Terrace’.107 Yet the author of our source of 679 on the mountain makes it clear that the largest of the three central iron pagodas was erected by local people in 673, whilst the one on the northern terrace was his own work.108 It is even imaginable that the cluster of smaller pagodas there had accumulated later as a result of the Buddhist equivalent of the practice of ‘burial

106  Wang, Tang hui yao 49, p. 1005; the preceding pages carry the criticisms of other minsters, including Di Renjie, some of which are excerpted and translated by Forte, Political Propaganda, pp. 151–153. 107  Reischauer, Ennin’s Diary, pp. 239, 240 and 243 respectively. 108  Huixiang, Gu Qingliang zhuan, pp. 1094a, 1099b, respectively.

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ad sanctos’, which certainly produced such an effect in South Asia.109 The practice has not been examined in China, but I have noticed one example at least, dated to 717.110 What appears to be a secular version of the same custom— burial near one’s ruler—would certainly appear to have been carried out in the seventh century.111 As it happens, an even later source on the Wutaishan area, compiled in 1059, does tell us that in 702 the empress ordered a nun to construct a pagoda on the Central Terrace, but since it is said to have taken a year to complete, it must have been much larger than any of the small or medium-sized structures mentioned so far.112 What is most astonishing about this account is that it is said that the following year, after a separate mission charged with refurbishing a monastery had witnessed a most gratifying series of omens, which were duly reported to the empress, she ordered her craftsmen to fashion a likeness of herself out of jade to dispatch to the mountain to worship Mañjuśrī. This attracted such crowds that it had to stop short of the mountain to receive their worship in a monastery in Taiyuan.113 Such a public use of an image as a surrogate is, I think, unparalleled in Chinese history, though her grandson, who clearly learned many lessons from her but used them mainly in the service of the Li family religion of Taoism, did distribute imperial icons about his domain.114 This may, however, have been the only way open to her to pay her respects to her favourite Buddhist site, since it has been pointed out that at this time a journey to the remote and occasionally dangerous northern borders of China would have been distinctly unwise.115

109  See Gregory Schopen, ‘Burial Ad Sanctos and the Physical Presence of the Buddha in Early Indian Buddhism: A Study in the Archaeology of Religions’, in Bones, Stones and Buddhist Monks, pp. 114–147, originally in Religion 17 (1987), pp. 193–225. If, of course, the concept of ‘ad sanctos’ is capable of being extended to include relics in textual form, the whole use of texts in Chinese funerary practice might need to be considered. 110  See Dong Gao, ed., Quan Tang wen 228 (Beijing: Palace edition, 1818), p. 14a2–3. This practice could, of course, also explain the earlier minature pagodas found on the mountain, but we are told explicitly that in the seventh century they were not understood that way. 111  See the diagram on p. 191 of David McMullen, ‘Bureaucrats and Cosmology: The Ritual Code of T’ang China’, in David Cannadine and Simon Price, eds., Rituals of Royalty: Power and Ceremonial in Traditional Societies (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), pp. 181–236. 112  Yanyi, Guang Qingliang zhuan A, p. 1106c, in edition of Taishō Canon, vol.51, no. 2099. 113  Yanyi, Guang Qingliang zhuan A, p. 1107b. 114  Barrett, Taoism Under the T’ang, p. 62; cf. p. 64. 115  See p. 10 of Xiao Yu, ‘Wu Zetian yu Wutaishan’, Wutaishan yanjiu 6 (1986), pp. 7–10.

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Whatever the truth of these accounts, the persistence of stories about the empress and Wutaishan contrasts quite dramatically with the situation regarding another of China’s most sacred peaks, Mount Tai in the East. There epigraphic evidence in abundance gives us excellent contemporary documentation of what the empress was up to on the mountain. Yet this material would seem to relate to much less public (or at least publicized) activity, leading modern scholars to conclude from it that she had religious interests quite different from those ostensibly reflected in her more flamboyant construction enterprises.116 Mount Tai has a long history in Chinese religion: traditionally the most important ceremonies in the state cult were conducted there whenever a ruler could claim to have brought good government to the empire— something which none had dared to claim for centuries before the time of the empress and her husband, who undertook the ceremonies in 666. This event is fully recorded in conventional sources, and there seems to have been a deliberate stress on its national, public nature, even if the numbers who would have observed on the mountaintop would probably have been quite limited.117 At the same time if the empress had later ordered public Buddhist ceremonies on the mountain, this would not have been a surprise: the god of Mount Tai was also considered to be Lord of the Dead in some circles, and this belief was one element in Chinese religion which seems to have influenced the formation in China of popular Buddhist texts.118 But all the inscriptions on Mount Tai mentioning the empress are in fact Taoist. And not only that: they date to 661 and 678, during her husband’s Taoist phase; to 691 and 692, when her new dynasty was busy using Buddhism to legitimate itself; and to 696, 698, 701 and 704, right through almost to the end of her reign.119 This consistent pattern may at first sight seem something of a puzzle, but recently Antonino Forte has advanced evidence suggesting that what hostility we may find towards Taoism during the early years of the Zhou 116  Note Rao Zongyi, ‘Cong shike lun Wu hou zhi zongjiao xinyang’, Zhongyang yanjiuyuan lishi yuyan yanjiusuo jikan 45.3 (1974), pp. 397–418; and Barrett, Taoism Under the T’ang, p. 43. 117  See Howard J. Wechsler, Offerings of Jade and Silk: Ritual and Symbol in the Legitimation of the T’ang Dynasty (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1985), pp. 170–194, especially pp. 184–188. 118  Osabe, Tō-Sō mikkyōshi, pp. 34–64. The materials drawn upon here are, as Osabe notes, hard to date, but the ‘Prophecy of Dīpaṃkara’ cited above (n. 93) demonstrates that this merging of belief may safely be taken to date back in some forms at least to the time of the empress. 119  Chen Yuan, comp., Chen Zhichao, Zeng Qingying, eds., Daojiao jinshi lue (Beijing: Wenwu chubanshe, 1988), pp. 56, 67; 79–80 and 80; and 81, 82, 93, 94 and 95 respectively.

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dynasty stemmed not from the empress, but from her alleged lover, the popular religious leader Xue Huaiyi, who though important to her assumption of direct rule, was disposed of in 695.120 The majority of the sources make clear that the ceremony carried out for the empress involved the ritual known as dragon hurling, or ‘tossing dragons’, in which inscribed messages were attached to small metal dragons and cast from a great height, theoretically so as to wing their way as messengers of the gods. Recent scholarship on Tang Taoism has been in two minds about this, seeing the practice as originally dedicated to seeking the personal immortality of the monarch, but later modified to become a ritual dedicated to the common weal.121 All the inscriptions on Mount Tai, at any rate, would appear to stress the wellbeing of society as a whole, though it is worth noting that Taoist inscriptions for 691 by the team of imperially appointed ritualists survive from one or two other locations such as the birthplace of Confucius, while that for Mount Tai makes it clear that all five Sacred Peaks were selected as sites for Taoist ceremonies in that year. This all suggests that however much a collection of epigraphic materials such as that relating to Mount Tai may help us in understanding the empress, the bulk of of our evidence even in this category had unfortunately disappeared before antiquarian scholars and students of calligraphy from Song times onwards embarked upon their remarkable efforts towards preserving inscribed sources of the Tang period and earlier. 16

A Message from Mount Song

It is a pity in particular that we do not possess more information to clarify all that she did on the central Sacred Peak, Mount Song, which we have already had occasion to mention above as the site of a palace and of the abortive enshrinement of a relic. The empress, like her husband before her, seems to have been obsessed with this sacred space, to an extent which hints that something beyond the admittedly important symbolism of the centre attracted them to it: I have suggested elsewhere that the cause may have been astrological, that they both felt that their fates were literally governed by this mountain.122 Yet in May 1982 one unexpected piece of additional information precisely dated to the year 700, was found on its slopes, in the form of an inscription from a 120  Antonino Forte, ‘The Maitreyist Huaiyi (d.695) and Taoism’, Tang yanjiu 4 (1998), pp. 15–29. 121  See p. 89 of Russell Kirkland, ‘Dimensions of Tang Taoism: The State of the Field at the End of the Millennium’, T’ang Studies 15/16 (1997–8), pp. 79–123. 122  Barrett, Taoism Under the T’ang, pp. 44–5.

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metal dragon, one of a very small number from medieval times that actually got away.123 Omitting only the details of the official responsible and the date of the ceremony, it says just this: With respect, Wu Zhao, ruler of the Great Zhou, delights in the True Way, and the long-lived holy immortals. She has respectfully sent to the Central Peak, to the gate of lofty Mount Song, and cast a metal tablet, begging the Three Officers and Nine Departments of the world of the dead to remove the criminal name of Wu Zhao from their records. The records mentioned here—one hardly needs to explain—totted up misdeeds to the point where a summons of death was issued; they have been seen as one of the key features distinguishing Taoism from other forms of native Chinese religion.124 Of all the empress ever wrote or said, of all that historians ever did to transmit to posterity her crimes and achievements, these few words, doubtless known only to her trusted intermediary who actually carried out the ceremony give us the most unmediated, unrehearsed private picture of the real person that we can possibly hope to retrieve. And it is a picture of a forthright and powerful woman who is facing up to the prospect of death and punishment for her crimes, and who will do whatever she can to escape her fate. It is in this sense that I have referred to the empress as ‘pious after her fashion’, and I make no apology for this seeming diversion from Buddhist studies into another religious tradition in order to establish the point For we shall find that we need to keep the dragon’s message in mind when we turn to the last category of evidence bearing on the topic of stūpa, sūtra and śarīra in China up to the year 705. 17

The Last Translations

This category is the balance of the Tantric materials surveyed by Osabe, of which we have only considered one or two from the earlier portion of the 123  The text is published in Chen, Chen and Zeng, Daojiao jinshi lue, p. 93, but misprints the name of the officiant charged with the task, who was a very important provincial religious reformer of the age. The inscription as reported on p. 11 of ‘Henan dixia wenwu xin faxian’, Zhongyuan wenwu 19.3 (1984) reveals him to have been Hu [Fa]zhao, for whom see Barrett, Taoism Under the T’ang, p. 44; Li Fang, ed., Taiping guangji 313 (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1961), p. 2495; Xiuzhen shishu 36.8a–10b (HY text no. 263 in the Taoist Canon). 124  Isabelle Robinet, Taoism: Growth of a Religion (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1997), p. 65. Paul W. Kroll - 978-90-04-38020-2 Downloaded from Brill.com11/15/2020 06:09:18AM via San Francisco State University

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career of the empress. Naturally Buddhist texts, and not just Tantric ones, continued to be translated throughout her reign, and of these perhaps the most famous was the retranslation of the Avataṃsaka Sūtra, completed in 699.125 It is noteworthy that this occasion too was used by the empress to assert to her public the success of the translation team (which she had assisted clerically herself) in averting eschatological collapse. For in her preface to the work she says ‘Who would have thought that in the latter five hundred years we would suddenly receive word from the Golden Mouth?’.126 Here the ‘Golden Mouth’ is, of course, the Buddha’s, and the ‘latter five hundred years’ is unambiguously in China a period of the withering away of Buddhism.127 As before, too, making public the benefits of Tantric texts to all was still very much the approach stressed by the empress. Some time after 697, for example, Bolun, whom we have encountered above as involved in the dissemination in the Buddhapāli version of the ‘Crowning Victory’ text, wrote a preface for a text and icon featuring the Thousand-armed Guanyin, in which he contrasts earlier problems in transmission with the straightforward attitude of the empress, who immediately orders her palace women to produce embroidery versions and her craftsmen to distribute painted copies.128 Mention of these lavish measures, however, calls to mind that the first reference to printing on paper by Taoists comes very far down a list of acceptable media in which to create images, so it is perhaps no wonder that references to printing texts are so hard to come by.129 For that matter the multiple construction of small pagodas, even quite expensive ones, also seems to have been nothing special in T’ang times. A survey of the monasteries in the capital carried out in the middle of the ninth century 125  For general accounts of Buddhist translation at this time, and this project in particular, see pp. 297–303 of Stanley Weinstein, ‘Imperial Patronage in the Formation of T’ang Buddhism’, in Arthur F. Wright and Denis Twitchett, eds., Perspectives on the T’ang (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1973), pp. 263–306, and Stanley Weinstein, Buddhism Under the T’ang (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), pp. 44–47. 126  Dong, comp., Quan Tang wen, 97.7a8–9. 127  On this phrase in South and East Asia, see Nattier, Once Upon a Future Time, pp. 91–92, n. 89; 106, n. 111; p. 118. 128  The version carrying this preface is no. 1057 in Taishō Canon, vol.20; for the order see p. 83c10. The cult of Guanyin in this form became remarkably popular during the Tang: see Kobayashi Taichirō, Kobayashi Taichirō chosaku shū, VII: Bukkyō geijutsu no kenkyū (Tokyo: Dankōsha, 1914), pp. 1–296, for a comprehensive study, though the brief mention of this preface on p. 89 simply takes the information given at face value and does not consider its historical background. 129  Since the appearance of my study, listed above in n. 6, the passage in question has been translated by Florian C. Reiter, The Aspirations and Standards of Taoist Priests in the Early T’ang Period (Wiesbaden: Harrasowitz, 1998), pp. 85–6. Paul W. Kroll - 978-90-04-38020-2 Downloaded from Brill.com11/15/2020 06:09:18AM via San Francisco State University

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discovered one with several tens of thousands of such pagodas surviving out of an even greater number which had originally been manufactured in some haste to deal with a spontaneous multiplication of relics; by comparison another establishment housed one hundred thousand small gilded images produced to expiate the killing of an innocent monk.130 Even allowing for some hyperbole, it would seem reasonable to assume that the state would have been easily capable of feats achieved by private citizens. True, one dhāraṇī translated for the empress by the Khotanese Śikṣānanda, the monk responsible for bringing her the new text of the Avataṃsaka Sūtra, did suggest that it was so potent that to place it inside a stūpa would create as much merit as making one hundred thousand ordinary stūpas.131 But this proffered shortcut probably did nothing to discourage mass manufacture, no more than the theoretical lower limit of one to ten invocations of the name of Amitābha ever discouraged Pure Land devotees in China from chanting the holy name incessantly. For rather than any change in the methods advocated by texts of this later period, it was their aims which have been seen as distinctive. In general, it was only over a decade after the death of the empress that the first Tantric texts started to be translated which produced the East Asian Tantric system known today, for example in Japanese Shingon. Even so at this point, when the goals of Tantric practice were still much more open, one specific benefit seems to be mentioned more frequently than any other, and this, as Osabe’s survey makes clear, was long life.132 This may not necessarily relate to the ‘Taoist’ elements he describes, or even to a Serindian input into the texts, since it is possible to find dhāraṇī designed to confer long life in non-Chinese materials also.133 Now that we have read the dragon’s message, we can be sure that the empress paid close attention to all such materials. But they must have presented her with a problem, for how could she put such texts to use without appearing to be pursuing entirely private interests, especially after having made such a point of public spiritedness in all her religious activities?

130  Duan Chengshi, Youyang zazu, supplement, 5 (Beijing; Zhonghua shuju, 1981), pp. 249, 251. 131   Baiqian yin tuoluoni jing, Taishō Canon vol.21, no. 1369, pp. 885c–886a. 132  Osabe, To-Sō mikkyōshi, p. 26, n. 13, commenting on Taishō Canon nos. 1080, 1082, 1083, and cf. pp. 27–8, n. 21. 133  This is shown by a preliminary study of the topic by Hatsuzaki Shōjun, ‘Emmei-hō ni kansuru Bukkyō keiten no kenkyū’, Indogaku Bukkyōgaku kenkyū 15.1 (1966), pp. 225–9, though one of the texts he cites (p. 236) from Taishō Canon 20, p. 584, was translated in 693. Paul W. Kroll - 978-90-04-38020-2 Downloaded from Brill.com11/15/2020 06:09:18AM via San Francisco State University

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The First Printed Text

This question must have been posed in particular by the Wugou jingguang da tuoluoni jing, the text printed copies of which survive in Korea and Japan. Its author, a Tokharian whose name seems to have been Mitrasena or Mitraśānta, came to China in 702, according to some remarks by Fazang (643–712) concerning a translation with which they were involved together up to 704.134 Since this same source states that his work at that time consisted of reviewing an existing translation by Śikṣānanda, it may well be that a catalogue of 730 is correct in suggesting that his work on our earliest printed text was likewise one of revising an existing version by Śikṣānanda as well; unfortunately neither this source nor any other gives a precise date for the completion of the work.135 But what it does show is that again he was working together with Fazang, which may well be significant for several reasons. First, we know that Fazang’s full-time dedication to Buddhism started at the age of fifteen when he burned off a finger as an offering at the Famensi; he would therefore have been familiar from an early age with the legend of Aśoka and his distribution of relics.136 Secondly, a passage in one of his earlier works, even if it may not be taken as proof of a familiarity with printing, at the very least shows that he appreciated the instantaneousness with which text can be created by a large seal or the like.137 Thirdly, as Stanley Weinstein observes, he was not just a famous exegete, but also carried out such practical tasks as praying for rain on behalf of the empress—though it may be noted that even his most philosophical essay for the empress, by collapsing distinctions of space and time, actually serves her religious purpose of bringing the time of the Buddha’s enlightenment closer once more to a fearful populace.138 Fourthly, 134  Cf. p. 9 of the translation of this information in D. T. Suzuki, Studies in the Lankavatara Sutra (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1930), pp. 7–10, drawing on p. 430b of Taishō Canon vol. 39, no. 1790. 135  Zhisheng, Kaiyuan shijiao lu 9, p. 566a9 and 11, b25, c2. 136  Weinstein, Buddhism Under the T’ang, p. 46. The chronology does not quite work, unless (as is likely) ‘fifteen’ is a conventional figure alluding to the career of Confucius in Analects 2.4.1, and he was actually a few years older when he made this pilgrimage. 137  This source is explored in the article in Chinese Science 15 listed above, n. 5; to the discussion of the date of the work in question given there may now be added A. Forte, A Jewel in Indra’s Net (Kyoto: Italian School of East Asian Studies, 2000), pp. 66–68, which shows that it existed in some substantial form by 690, though it is of course impossible to guarantee absolutely that the passage I discuss was included at that date. 138  Cf. p. 332 of the translation of his ‘Chapter on the Golden Lion’ by Leon Hurvitz, in W. T. de Bary, ed., Sources of Chinese Tradition, vol. i (New York: Columbia University Press, 1960), pp. 329–333. For Weinstein’s observation, see n. 115 above. Paul W. Kroll - 978-90-04-38020-2 Downloaded from Brill.com11/15/2020 06:09:18AM via San Francisco State University

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his earliest biography reveals that following conversations with the empress it was he who was charged in 704 with going to the Famensi and after due rituals escorting the Buddha’s relic back to the capital.139 One suspects therefore that he would have known exactly what to do when presented with the problem of how to create a public context for the private goal contained in his newly translated text. His new product consisted of four dhāraṇī texts interspersed with praise of their benefits.140 The first, for example, guarantees that if seventy-seven copies are placed in seventy-seven miniature clay pagodas, it will add one year to one’s life, and that even if this is done posthumously, it will secure a rebirth in a heaven, while the rest of the dhāraṇī weigh in with even more benefits, so that finally it is stated that by placing ninety-nine copies of all four in miniature pagodas almost limitless rewards are possible.141 For the empress to carry out such a ritual for herself would have exposed her to the public charge of seeking personal gain in a way that she had always been anxious to avoid, and but for the accidental discovery of her dragon message in the twentieth century would have successfully concealed from history entirely. Now the obvious solution was to distribute this new talismanic import in Aśokan fashion across her empire as a demonstration both of her legitimacy as a Buddhist ruler and of her desire to share her good fortune. The smallest units of administration under the early Tang empire totalled only some one and a half thousand plus units, but if all territories which entertained friendly relations with the court such as Korea and Japan were included, that would have driven the number up towards a couple of thousand.142 It would have been enough to distribute a few copies, or even one copy, to each: no one would worry about overproduction at the centre, since it did not tax the scribal resources of the bureaucracy, to judge from the surviving evidence for the later Japanese enterprise.143 It is, in fact, an even later episode which gives us the greatest reason to believe that Japanese practice was inspired by a distribution of relics in textual form carried out by the empress. For in the tenth century Qian Shu (929–988), the ruler of the small but prosperous state of Wu-Yue, with territory around the 139  Ch’oe Ch’iwŏn, Pŏpjang Hwasangjŏn, pp. 283b–284a in Taishō Canon, vol. 50. 140   Wugou jingguang da tuoluoni jing, Taishō Canon no. 1024 in Vol. 19, pp. 717c–721b. 141  Taishō Canon, vol. 19, pp. 718b, 718c, 720c–721a. 142  For the total of 1551 administrative units before the rise of the empress, see Li Tai, comp., He Cijun, ed., Guadi zhi jijiao, general preface (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1980), p. 5; the empire would have been slightly larger in her day. 143  Kornicki, The Book in Japan, p. 116.

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mouth of the Yangtse river, seems to have followed a dynastic policy of strong ideological support for religion, and Buddhism in particular, in order to promote its image in the interstate diplomacy of the period.144 In particular there is plenty of surviving evidence to show that he engaged over a number of years in the Aśokan distribution of relics in textual form, using a dhāraṇī unknown in the time of the empress that was translated in the late eighth century by the great confidant of emperors and Tantric master Amoghavajra.145 Copies of this work, variously dated, have been found in China both inside and outside his home territory.146 There is a trace of the distribution of at least one of his textual relics to Korea also, with which he had close diplomatic ties.147 But the impact of his distribution of 500 copies to Japan was particularly marked: the manufacture of miniature pagodas, which for a while saw a certain vogue in that country, invariably thereafter used Amoghavajra’s text in preference to the one translated in the days of the empress.148 It should not be assumed that our hypothetical distribution by the Empress Wu must necessarily have served as the proximate model for his actions: Abe Jōichi, in a brief account of Qian and the Aśokan ideal, notes a fourteenth century source that speaks intriguingly of a distribution of relics in the mid-ninth century, following a centralization of these objects during the great Huichang persecution of Buddhism.149 But what this episode does show is that though over time the texts involved 144  There is a good brief account of Wu-Yue, including an account of Qian Shu’s religious activities, by Edmund H. Worthy, Jr., ‘Diplomacy for Survival: Domestic and Foreign Relations of Wu Yüeh, 907–978’, in Morris Rossabi, ed., China Among Equals (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1983), pp. 17–44. 145  The text in question is no. 1022 in the Taishō Canon. Amoghavajra represents a later phase in imperial Chinese Buddhism, which may now be studied through Charles D. Orzech, Politics and Transcendent Wisdom (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1998). 146  As noted in Tsien Tsuen-hsuin, Science and Civilisation in China, vol. V.1 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985), pp. 157–8. 147  See Hwang Su-yŏng, ed., Chŭngbo Hanguk kŭmsŏk yumun (Seoul: Iljisa, 1981, third edition), p. 177, for the relic. For a recent summary of the extensive, simultaneously religious and diplomatic relations between Wu-Yue and Korea, see pp. 356–7 of Wang Tsui-ling, ‘Sugyōroku no seiritsu’, Indogaku Bukkyōgaku kenkyū 48.1 (1999), pp. 358–355 (reverse pagination). 148  There are several studies bearing on this episode: see e.g. Okazaki Jōji, ‘Sen Kōshuku hachi man yon sen tō kō’, Bukkyō geijutsu 76 (1970), pp. 111–125, and cf. Ishida, Bukkyō kōkogaku ronsō, 4, pp. 263–271. 149  Abe Jōichi, Chūgoku Zenshūshi no kenkyū (Tokyo: Seishin shobō, 1963), p. 96. I have not as yet located any earlier source that confirms this centralization and redistribution, but it would not seem to be intrinsically impossible.

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may have changed, the Sui precedent of playing the Aśokan role, not simply by the production of 84,000 miniature pagodas (as in the Tangut case studied by Linrothe) but in particular by the distribution of relics in such pagodas throughout East Asia as a whole, was by no means forgotten, even centuries later.150 19

The End of the Empress

What this does not explain, however, is why a copy of the text (printed, as we might now surmise, even though copies in manuscript certainly did circulate later) did not arrive in Korea until 706, well after the removal of the empress.151 But the biography of Fazang cited above shows that he would have been preoccupied with the Famensi relic from late 704 into the first month of 705, so he perhaps could not turn his attention to any scheme immediately, if one existed, and by the end of that month the empress had been deposed. All her grandiose religious undertakings were cancelled at once, and Yang Wulian, her chief of engineering, was packed off to a remote provincial post.152 But no one dared lay a finger on her, so that it was not until much later in the year, on 150  Nor did the switch to Amoghavajra’s text immediately lead to a complete abandonment of the Wugou jingguang da tuoluoni jing as a text associated with relics: for an example of such a use from 1096, see Chen, Liao wen cun, 9, p. 252, though this source, while mentioning 2,000 minature pagodas along with 20 grains of relics and five copies of the text, does not seem to be associated with any act of distribution. 151  Manuscript copies of the Wugou jingguang da tuoluoni jing may be found among the Dunhuang manuscripts, mainly (seven) in the Beijing collection, but also two in London, S1634 and S4156, and one in Paris, P3916. Stephen F. Teiser, The Scripture on the Ten Kings and the Making of Purgatory in Medieval Chinese Buddhism (Honolulu: University of Hawaiii Press, 1994), p. 99, notes that the Paris manuscript forms part of a small collection of texts in a notebook, a format which to judge from other similar examples suggests the regular use of the text by a ritual practitioner. He also gives on the preceding page a well-known example of a text (the Diamond Sūtra) often copied in manuscript in the tenth century from a printed exemplar—this, however, only becomes detectable with the rise of commercial printing, since the copyists faithfully copy in the printer’s colophon. What happened in the case of the Wugou jingguang da tuoluoni can only remain hypothetical. Whether the copies of our text listed by Japanese pilgrims to China in the ninth century were manuscripts or not is an even trickier problem, which is here dealt with in an Appendix, below. 152  Dong, Quan Tang wen 269.9a5; this is the source used by Forte and dated below, n. 154. For Yang, see the rather contradictory images presented in Zhang Zhuo, Chaoye qianzai 2 (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1979), p. 36, and 6, p. 142; D. C. Twitchett, Financial

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16th December, that she actually died.153 Doubtless fearful that her spirit in death might be even more formidable than in life, her son and successor immediately revived her favourite scheme for a giant metal statue, abandoned as we have said in 704.154 If the distribution of the translation for its beneficial posthumous effects on her (to which we have already drawn attention) was ordered at the same time because it was another item left on her agenda, then the work would have been carried out in 706. In both cases a certain amount of haste would have been called for in order to deploy the necessary good karma towards her next reincarnation, which in current belief would have been determined in a mere seven weeks; printing would have commended itself for its speed if nothing else under the circumstances.155 The final argument for associating the new dhāraṇī in printed form with the funeral rites of the empress, however, entails the corollary that far from being a left-over agenda item, now was the time that it came into its own. For Greg Schopen has shown that, with other similar works, it was used precisely as a funeral text in monuments in India.156 And not only that: the inscription of 706 in Korea shows very plainly that that was precisely how it was used already by the end of the fifth month there (12 August in the Western calendar). For it was found in a pagoda originally erected for the repose of King Sinmun (r. 681– 692) by his widow and his son King Hyoso (r. 692–792); following their deaths, the reliquary was added by the latter’s brother, King Sŏngdŏk (r. 702–737), not simply (as the inscription states) for their posthumous benefit, but also (as he states with un-Chinese directness) to increase his own lifespan.157 In view of the surmise that the copy of the Wugou jingguang da tuoluoni referred to was in fact one distributed by the empress in printed form, it is unfortunate that no Administration Under the T’ang (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970; second ed.), p. 86 for the context of the former, more negative remarks. 153  Sima Guang, Zizhi tongjian 208, p. 6596, converted into the Western calendar. 154  This we know from the renewal of protest against it: see Forte, Mingtang and Buddhist Utopias, pp. 69–70, where he uses the protesting memorial for its review of earlier schemes; he suggests (n. 63) 28th December for the edict reviving her plans for the statue. 155  For the time scale of rituals determining rebirth, see Stephen F. Teiser, The Scripture on the Ten Kings p. 23–25, and Michihata Ryōshū, ‘Chūgoku Bukkyō to shichishichisai’, Shūkyō kenkyū 34 (1961), pp. 85–86: though later rituals envisaged memorial services at fixed intervals, forty-nine days was probably the time limit uppermost in contemporary minds. 156  Schopen, ‘Burial Ad Sanctos’, p. 121, and n. 32, p. 142, making the explicit connection with the earliest East Asian printed materials. 157  The inscription and the other contents found in the reliquary are analysed in Umehara Sueji, ‘Kankoku Keishū Kōfukuji tō hakken shari yōki’, Bijutsu kenkyū 156 (1950), pp. 31–47; cf. Hwang, Hanguk kŭmsŏk yumun, pp. 140–141.

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surviving trace of paper material was found by the archaeologists responsible for the discovery, though some decayed slivers of thin bamboo have been seen as evidence for the original existence of a bookbag in the pagoda, presumably containing the text in question.158 The funerary use in Korea of the the Wugou jingguang da tuoluoni is, even so, firmly attested not only by this inscription but by later evidence as well.159 And once the possibility is admitted that the text arrived in Korea in conjunction with ceremonies marking the passing of the empress, it seems to me highly improbable that such a ‘one-off’ operation of manufacture and distribution would have been undertaken under pressure of time had not earlier exercises of this type taken place already using other texts, so that everyone knew exactly what to do. Once again, one suspects the agency of Fazang, who by this point had probably accumulated considerable experience in handling ‘Aśokan affairs’—indeed, a couple of years later, in 708, we find an inscription bearing his name on a relic casket, newly provided at that time, amongst the Famensi finds.160 This would, then, increase the likelihood that the various factors impelling the empress to carry out some distribution of texts by printing had already resulted in action earlier in her own reign or even those of her sons or husband. 20

The Empress in Retrospect

I am aware, of course, that we have now reached our target date without turning up the least piece of concrete evidence to say that the empress ordered the printing of anything. But while I should repeat that there is still plenty of room for research even into the materials used in this study, I rather suspect that no such evidence exists. We have already mentioned the historiographic bias against her; we have also drawn out her pursuit of private objectives which she deliberately hid from view; and where ideological control was at stake, one doubts that much would have been allowed to survive in public documents anyhow. One of her ministers, alarmed by the all too blatant depradations of her chief of police early in her reign, cites Laozi’s dictum that ‘the sharp 158  See p. 65 of Kayamoto Somato, ‘Nissen jōdai jiin no shari shōgongu ni tsuite’, Bukkyō geijutsu 32 (1958), pp. 52–81. 159  As is made clear by the study of Kayamoto (see preceding note), and cf. Chōsen sōtokufu, ed., Chōsen kinshi sōran, vol.1 (‘Heijō’: Chōsen sōtokufu, 1919), p. 55, no. 29; Hwang, Hanguk kŭmsŏk yumun, pp. 161, 166, 172. 160  Wu and Han, Famensi digong Tang mi mantuluo zhi yanjiu, p. 70.

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instruments of the state are not to be shown to outsiders’.161 Even so, in associating her name with the emergence of printing I do not think that we are simply constructing a tottering tower of hypotheses. Rather, what we have is a field or forest of separate hypotheses growing naturally together to constitute not any specific structure, but a much wider and quite unmistakable environment. That environment was the product of many factors, but it was tended by one person in particular, the Empress Wu, whether the ultimate harvest came before or after her death. Why did printing spread in China, when the seal was known across the Old World from high antiquity? Not, surely, because the Chinese wanted more books, as the statistics for sūtra production under the Sui make abundantly clear. It is more likely in the light of the information reviewed above that printing arose for a number of unambiguously religious reasons associated primarily with Buddhism: to mollify Chinese ethnocentrism by making China more Buddhist; or to calm the apocalyptic fears of a population that fancied it saw the signs of the Buddha’s presence fading away as time passed; or to justify the rule of a woman both nationally and internationally in terms of the fulfilment of Buddhist prophecy; or to salve the conscience of that same woman in her old age, disturbed by the thought that in order to seize and retain her grip on power she had been obliged to kill repeatedly; or, finally, to reassure her nervous son that his late mother had been dispatched to a world pleasant enough to stop her spirit from returning to the one now under his control. It is possible, of course, that someone had already hit upon printing as a cheap way of manufacturing and selling dhāraṇī texts in the seventh century; it is even just possible that the idea occurred independently in Korea and Japan. But there are some indications that might be taken to suggest that it was not until the empress took over from the Tang to rule in her own right that the state became involved in printing, and thus bestowed on it a crucial dgree of legitimacy. For the research of Fujieda Akira in the Dunhuang manuscripts has uncovered the singular fact that several dozen copies of the Lotus and the Diamond Sūtras were actually copied out at the capital, using the resources of state employed copyists in various parts of the civil service, between 671 and 677, evidently in order to provide good exemplars of well edited versions of popular works, though perhaps also to promote acceptable, orthodox Buddhist literature in the face of more dubious concoctions, such as the

161  Wang, Tang hui yao 41, p. 867; the saying, from Daode jing 36, is itself diplomatically blunted by most translators: Michael LaFargue, The Tao of the Tao Te Ching (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1992), pp. 158, 159, is one exception.

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Dīpaṃkara prophecy, which we will recall dated to 670.162 As there is no reason to think that Dunhuang was particularly favoured with these centrally disseminated texts, we must assume that rather a large number were created for China as a whole. Since these, and also the copy of the equally widely distributed commentary studied by Forte in his first monograph on Empress Wu’s political propaganda, all exist in manuscript, evidently printing did not commend itself even for the accurate volume production of a work as short as the Diamond Sūtra at this point. This is why I have guessed that the funerary associations of the Wugou jingguang da tuoluoni jing may have been important, in that the element of speed of multiple production would also have been crucial, along with accuracy and volume, in the situations in which it was used. Even so, Fujieda’s work does illuminate yet another facet of the medieval Chinese state’s persistent and large-scale involvement in the control of textual material—an important aspect of the background to the adoption of printing that could easily be the topic of monographic study in itself. But, in short, the probability is that printing spread in order to meet the religious needs of China under the exceptional rule of one of its most Buddhist sovereigns. Without her and her unusual sensitivity to popular Buddhism, no doubt, the story would have had much the same ending: some of the basic preconditions for printing, such as paper, were there all the time, and so I have not discussed them.163 But if there was something distinctive about the empress that marked her off from the male rulers who dominate the rest of Chinese history, it was undoubtedly her open-mindedness—even her daring—in coopting the power of popular religious sentiment to strengthen her regime.164 Most rulers in China after the dramatic and disturbing Yellow Turban uprising of the late second century ce worried (and perhaps still worry) obsessively about the 162  There is a useful summary of Fujieda’s work in Jean-Pierre Drège, Les bibliothèques en Chine au temps des manuscrits (Paris: ÉFEO, 1991), pp. 85–86. 163  The broader background, which I have ignored for present purposes, may be found in Constance R. Miller, Technical and Cultural Prerequisites for the Invention of Printing in China and the West (San Francisco: Chinese Materials Center, 1983). 164  Thus, apart from the Maitreyanist leader Xue Huaiyi and the Taoist reformer Hu Fazhao, whom we have already encountered, the empress also gave credence to a nun who claimed to be a Buddha and her associates, even though they are accused by the historians of having ‘misled the masses’, a propensity which all emperors tended to regard with some alarm, despite the willingness of many of them to listen to all kinds of holy men who flattered them with more personal attention to their longevity, good fortune, etc. See Sima, Zizhi tongjian 205, pp. 6494–5, dated to 694. Of course, as we have seen, ‘co-opting’ just as frequently meant forestalling such movements by posing as some form of messiah herself.

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power of popular religion to inspire revolts capable of overthrowing dynasties, and were far more concerned to repress rather than to harness religious movements. The only possible parallel that comes to mind is the last Empress Dowager at the end of the Qing, trying much more ineptly to use the Boxers to shore up her tottering power. So, finally, where does the foregoing information leave our understanding of the introduction of the distribution of texts from woodblock? In some ways, not radically different, in that Buddhism has been shown to have played a major (but not the sole) part in its success. Even so, the specific Buddhist ideas involved have, perhaps, emerged with greater clarity. And it is probably safe to say that while there is nothing that is obviously and specifically ‘female’ about the origins of printing, its widespread adoption now has to be seen against the overall background of the ideological innovations introduced by the Empress Wu. These were, after all, largely a reflection of her unique position as a female ruler, which in turn elicited from her daring and sometimes unique solutions to the problem of legitimating herself. Without the empress, the saga of the discovery and spread of the new technology would, at the least, have been a very different and probably much longer story.

Appendix: Ninth-century Japanese Buddhist Catalogues of Acquisitions from China: Print or Manuscript?

As pointed out above, at n. 145, we know from the Dunhuang finds that manuscript copies of the Wugou jingguang da tuoluonijing circulated in Tang China, even if the precise dating of these exemplars is unclear. It might be thought that the catalogues of their acquisitions made by Japanese pilgrims in China, since (as Peter Kornicki has pointed out) they distinguish printed materials in their listings, should provide some evidence to place such manuscripts at least in the ninth century, when these monks were active.165 It is certainly true that these catalogues mention the Wugou jingguang da tuoluoni jing several times, but the presumption that since they are not indicated as printed exemplars they must be manuscripts is not an entirely safe one.166 This is because a close look reveals that the distinction between print and manuscript is only made in certain texts, and for certain purposes; there is no way to be certain in the case

165  Kornicki, The Book in Japan, p. 118, n. 9, gives four apparent references to printed matter listed in such catalogues, which are all to be found in volume 55 of the Taishō Canon. 166  For examples of listings of our text in these sources, see Taishō no. 2161, p. 1063b; no. 2165, p. 1074c; no. 2166, p. 1076c; no. 2167, p. 1032c; p. 2168, p. 1091a; no. 2172, p. 1098c.

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of any of the exemplars mentioned that they should be placed either in one category or the other. The first mention of printing, which is in a catalogue of acquisitions by Ennin (793– 864), is apparently of one hundred ‘stamped Buddhas in fine copper’ and ‘a stamp in the form of a pagoda for making impressions in clay’—the Indian practice already noted above for the seventh century.167 There is thus no direct connection with woodblock printing. There would appear to be a reference to a printed text of the ‘Crowning Victory’ in another catalogue by one of Ennin’s contemporaries, Eun, but this is made a little uncertain by the frequent reference in these sources (which are particularly interested in Tantric materials) to mudrās, the Chinese translation term for which uses the same word, yin, ‘a seal’, also covers the literal products of printing. If there has been some displacement of text in this catalogue (and the copyists responsible, though good, were clearly fallible), then this casual reference to printing disappears.168 Unambiguous references to printed materials do occur in a further work compiled by the pilgrim Shūei (809–884), but his catalogue is unusual for the amount of physical description of his acquisitions that it contains, and the mention of printing seems in one case primarily designed to distinguish one version of a collection of texts from slightly different manuscript versions elsewhere in his listings.169 Elsewhere he does list two printed dictionaries commercially produced, but here the mention of printing is in each case part of their titles.170 Even in this catalogue, then, we cannot be sure that we are consistently given information on whether a work is printed or not. In a somewhat similar fashion, the iconographic section of a catalogue by Ennin’s disciple Annen (841–985) includes details on the physical format of icons not found elsewhere in his listings for texts, and here too there is one clear reference to a print.171 But this may mean that elsewhere in his work Annen does not distinguish between print and manuscript. In short, then, unambiguous references to printed books in these materials are somewhat rare—only three explicit examples in the work of Shūei, by my count—but this in itself tells us nothing about the circulation of printed materials in China at the time or even about the nature of the materials brought back. I should note, too, in this

167  Taishō no. 2167, p. 1084c; cf. no. 2176, p. 1132a, for a later mention of the second object, which may perhaps be read to mean a pagoda formed of clay from a matrix, though this seems unlikely. The exact metal used in the former object is also a little unclear from the dictionary references I have consulted. 168  Taishō Canon, no. 2168, p. 1090c. 169  Taishō Canon, no. 2174A, p. 1110a. 170  Ibid., p. 1111b. 171  Taishō Canon, no. 2176, p. 1131c. This is not mentioned by Kornicki, who is concerned only with books.

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Stūpa, Sūtra, Śarīra In China, C. 656–706 Ce

1713

connection that I hope to publish a study showing that Japanese sources appear to preserve the text of a piece of printed material brought back at the end of the eighth century which was not even listed in the relevant catalogue of acquisitions. Unfortunately for us, the vibrancy of the contemporary manuscript culture was such that printing did not appear as some major marvel, but rather started off as a technique suitable for relic equivalents that would never be read or for ephemera, and so the distinction between print and manuscript just did not interest observers in the same way that it does us.

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The Birth of a Patriarch: The Biography of Hui-neng Philip B. Yampolsky We have seen how Ch’an in the eighth century began with a school that emphasized the Laṅkāvatāra Sutra, under the direction of an illustrious and learned priest, Shen-hsiu. He was revered as few were in his time, and honors were heaped upon him; gradually his power and position grew. Among his disciples were priests of no less fame, who carried on his teachings. To assure its newly acquired position among other Buddhist sects, this Ch’an school was in need of historical records to prove its legitimacy and to attest to the antiquity of its teaching. To this end records of the sect were devised; but so scanty was the available information that the compilers of the first histories were compelled to rely on a non-Ch’an work, the Hsü kao-seng chuan, to piece out their story. To this they added various legends, established a line of transmission, and arrived eventually at a theory of the succession of six Patriarchs, from Bodhidharma through Shen-hsiu. This was the tradition that was known at the court and among high officials, the literati, and the populace in general, in the third decade of the eighth century. The Ch’an priests who represented this tradition were honored men; when they passed away elaborate funerals were held, and distinguished stylists composed their epitaphs. But in the hinterlands, in the provincial capitals removed from Loyang and Ch’ang-an, were other Ch’an teachers whose teachings derived from the same Hung-jen, who had been Shen-hsiu’s Master. We know that they existed, but there was no one to record their teachings, no one to commemorate their deaths with elegantly inscribed stone inscriptions, no one to gather their stories or those of their spiritual ancestors. But in 732 a hitherto unknown priest, Shen-hui, rose to challenge the powerful Ch’an in the capital cities. He accused P’u-chi, then the Northern Ch’an leader, of having falsely usurped the title of Seventh Patriarch and of having made his own teacher, Shen-hsiu, the Sixth. The real Sixth Patriarch, said Shenhui, was Hui-neng. He told of Hui-neng’s teachings, damned the doctrines of the Northern School, and claimed that his was the true Ch’an. Gradually he gained a following; his disciples recorded his sermons and disseminated the history of his school. Eventually his claims came to be accepted. The great Source: “The Birth of a Patriarch: The Biography of Hui-neng,” in Philip B. Yampolsky, The Platform Sutra of the Sixth Patriarch: The Text of the Dunhuang Manuscript, New York, London: Columbia University Press, 1967, 58–88. Copyright © 1967 Columbia University Press. Reprinted with permission of the publisher. © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���9 | doi:��.��63/9789004380202_052

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The Birth Of A Patriarch

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leaders of Northern Ch’an died off, and their followers, because they were men of lesser stature, though not without power, were ultimately unable to cope with the attacks against them. The capital cities in a declining dynasty were not the appropriate environment for this new doctrine, nor were Shen-hui’s followers men of talent, and after his death in 762 his teachings declined along with those of Northern Ch’an. Meanwhile other Ch’an Masters arose in outlying areas, claiming Hui-neng as their teacher, spreading their own teachings, writing their own histories, perpetuating their own legends. Some fell into oblivion; others thrived, and from these arose the two schools from which all later Ch’an derived. It is against this background that we must try to place Hui-neng, the Sixth Patriarch, the hero of Chinese Ch’an. His legend grows from a single mention in a single text to an elaborate biography, filled with details and dates, seeming facts and patent legends. The careers of the men of Northern Ch’an are documented, yet they fade from the pages of the later histories of Ch’an. For Hui-neng we have no facts, yet later history records his life in much detail. How much of this material are we prepared to accept; how much must we reject as unfounded fancy? Or must we conclude by saying that we can never know, that fact and legend are so inseparably intertwined that they cannot be set apart? Among the numerous works which purport to tell of Hui-neng there are some which can be rejected at the outset as obviously spurious. All of these may be found in the Ch’üan T’ang wen, that vast collection of documents relating to the T’ang dynasty, compiled in 1814. Since they have been regarded as authentic by a number of scholars, their contents will be analyzed in detail. The first of these is Fa-hai’s “Brief Preface”1 to the Platform Sutra. Because of its attribution to Fa-hai, who is known as the compiler of the Platform Sutra, many writers have accepted it and its contents as reliable.2 Let us see what it says.3 The Master’s name was Hui-neng. His father was Lu Hsing-t’ao and his mother was of the Li family. He was born between 11 p.m. and 1 a.m. on the eighth day of the second month of Chen-kuan 12 [= February 27 or March 28, 638].4 When he was born beams of light rose into the air and the room was filled 1  C TW, ch. 915 (Xix, 12032–33). It is entitled Liu-tsu ta-shih fa-pao t’an-ching lüeh-hsü. 2  Ui, Zenshū shi kenkyū, II, 174, dates it at “around 714.” W. T. Chan, The Platform Scripture, p. 158, n. 13, gives a similar date, and lists it first among the sources for Hui-neng’s biography. 3  The full translation from the Ch’üan T’ang wen is given below. The reader is referred to secs. 2–11 of the translation of the Platform Sutra for an account of events not detailed in Fa-hai’s preface. 4  There are two second months in Chen-kuan 12. The text does not indicate which one is referred to here. Paul W. Kroll - 978-90-04-38020-2 Downloaded from Brill.com11/15/2020 06:09:18AM via San Francisco State University

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with a strange fragrance. At dawn two mysterious monks visited the Master’s father and said: “The child born last night requires an auspicious name; the first character should be ‘Hui,’ and the second, ‘Neng.’ ” “What do ‘Hui’ and ‘Neng’ mean?” inquired the father. The priest answered: “ ‘Hui’ means to bestow beneficence on sentient beings; ‘Neng’ means the capacity to carry out the affairs of the Buddha.” When they had finished speaking they left, and there is no one who knows where they went. The Master would not drink his mother’s milk and at night a heavenly being brought nectar for him. When he was twenty-four years of age he heard a sutra and was awakened to the Way. Going to Huang-mei, he sought sanction [for his understanding]. The Fifth Patriarch, recognizing his ability, bestowed on him the robe and Dharma and made him his heir. This was in the year 661. He returned to the south where he remained in hiding for sixteen years. On the eighth day of the first month of I-feng 1 [= February 26, 676] he met the Dharma-master Yin-tsung, who became enlightened and awakened to the Master’s teaching. On the fifteenth day of the same month, before a gathering of the whole assemblage, Hui-neng had his head shaven. On the eighth day of the second month various illustrious priests gathered together and ordained him.5 The Vinaya-master Chih-kuang of Hsi-ching sponsored his ordination; Vinaya-master Hui-ching of Su-chou supervised the functions; Vinaya-master T’ung-ying of Ching-chou served as teacher; Vinaya-master Ch’i-to-lo of India was in charge of reading the precepts; and the Indian Tripitaka Master Mi-to testified to the precepts. The ordination platform had been set up in the Sung dynasty by the Tripitaka Master Gunabhadra, who at the same time erected a stone tablet with the inscription: “In the future a living Bodhisattva will receive ordination here.” In the year 502 of the Liang dynasty the Tripitaka Master Chih-yao arrived by sea from India, bringing a bo tree, which he planted beside the platform. He made the prediction: “Some 170 years from now a living Bodhisattva will preach the Supreme Vehicle from beneath this tree, and will bring salvation to countless persons. Possessing the Dharma, he will truly transmit the seal of the Buddha mind.”6

5  The following names are those of the three superior priests and two of the priests of lesser rank whose presence was required at an official ordination. 6  The version in the Ching-te ch’uan-teng lu, t51, p. 235c, differs: the Tripitaka Master is given as Paramārtha (Chen-ti); he is said to have planted two trees; and to have predicted that Hui-neng’s appearance would be 120 years in the future.

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The Birth Of A Patriarch

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Thereupon, the Master’s head was shaven and he received the precepts, and for the sake of the assemblage, he expounded the doctrine of the single transmission [from mind to mind], just as had been predicted in the past (from the year 502 of the Liang dynasty to the year 676 of the T’ang dynasty was some 175 years).7 In the spring of the following year the Master took leave of the assembly to go to the Pao-lin Temple, and Yin-tsung and over a thousand monks and laymen saw him off. Soon he arrived at Ts’ao-ch’i. At that time the Vinaya-master, T’ung-ying, accompanied by several hundred students, went to the Pao-lin Temple at Ts’ao-ch’i because the Master was there. Seeing that the temple buildings were too small for the assembly, Hui-neng wanted to enlarge them. Thereupon he asked a native of the village, Ch’en Yahsien: “I seek a donation from you of a piece of land on which to spread my sitting cloth (niṣīdana). Can you supply it for me?” “How large is your cloth?” asked Ch’en Ya-hsien. The Master took it out and showed it to him, and Ya-hsien agreed to his proposal, but when the Patriarch spread out his cloth it covered the whole of Ts’ao-ch’i. The Four Deva Kings materialized bodily and, squatting down, took up guard at each of the four directions, and because of this a hill within the temple precincts is known as the Deva King Peak. [Ch’en Ya]-hsien said: “I well recognize the breadth of the power of your Dharma; however the grave of my ancestors is in this area, so that if in the future you construct a grave here, I would ask that you save a place for it. The remaining buildings you may discard as you wish to make this place into a treasure temple for all eternity. This is a mountain range to which the living dragon and the white elephant repair, so although you make the tops of the buildings level with the sky, do not level off the ground beneath.” Later, when the temple buildings were constructed, these instructions were followed explicitly. The Master wandered about the scenic spots within the temple precincts, stopping to rest [here and there], and eventually thirteen buildings were erected [at these resting places]. Hua-kuo Temple was one of them, and [the Master] hung a tablet at the temple gate. The history of the Pao-lin Temple is this: the Indian Tripitaka Master, Chihyao, on his way from Nan-hai, passed by the gateway to Ts’ao-ch’i. Drinking some of the local water, he found its fragrance delightful and, thinking this strange, he said to his followers: “This water is no different from that of India. Its source must lie at some wondrous place which would be a suitable site for erecting a temple.” Following the stream to its source, he found everywhere 7  Note in the original text.

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mountains and brooks circling about, and peaks of extraordinary beauty. In admiration he exclaimed: “It is just like the treasure forest (Pao-lin) mountains of India!” Then he said to the people of Ts’ao-ch’i village: “You must erect a temple in these mountains. One hundred and seventy years from now the unsurpassed Dharma-treasure will be expounded and propagated here, and those who gain enlightenment will be as numerous as the trees in the forest. It would be good to give the temple the name Pao-lin.” At that time the magistrate of Shao-chou, Hou Ching-chung, reported what [the Tripitaka Master] had said to the throne, and the emperor complied with the request and presented a tablet inscribed Pao-lin, and the temple was built. It was completed in the year 504 of the Liang dynasty. In front of the Buddha Hall was a pool from which a dragon used always to emerge, wrecking havoc in the surrounding trees. One day it appeared in an especially large form, whipping up the waves in the pool, raising clouds and mists which obscured the skies, and terrifying all the assembled monks. The Master scolded the dragon: “You can appear only in a large form, but not in a small one. If you were a real divine dragon, you would be able to change easily; when you have a small body you should be able to make yourself large, and when your body is large, you should be able to appear in a small form.” The dragon immediately vanished, and after a little while appeared again, this time in a small form, and came dancing from the surface of the lake. The Master held out his bowl and said: “Are you brave enough to get into the bottom of my bowl?” The dragon then skipped forward, and the Master scooped it up with his bowl, so that the dragon was unable to move. The Master then took the bowl to the hall, where he preached to the dragon, which promptly shed its body and departed. Its body was only seven inches long, and was equipped with a head, neck, horns, and a tail, and this was kept at the temple. Later the Master filled the pond with earth and stones and erected a stupa of iron, that stands today on the left side, in front of the Buddha Hall. The only other place where Fa-hai’s preface may be found is in the Yüan edition of the Platform Sutra, where it appears under the title Liu-tsu ta-shih yüanch’i wai-chi.8 This text varies only slightly from the version translated above.9 Not only is this preface not found in any source prior to the Yüan dynasty, but 8  t 48, pp. 362b–63a. This edition places the preface at the end of the work. The Yüan edition compiled by Te-i (see below, p. 107) contains the same preface with identical title, but places it at the head of the text, following Te-i’s own preface. See Gen Enyū Kōrai kokubon Rokuso daishi hōbō dankyō, Zengaku kenkyū, no. 23 (July, 1935), pp. 1–63. 9  The variants are discussed in Ui, Zenshū ski kenkyū, II, 175–76. He notes some fourteen textual differences, mostly of an insignificant nature. Paul W. Kroll - 978-90-04-38020-2 Downloaded from Brill.com11/15/2020 06:09:18AM via San Francisco State University

The Birth Of A Patriarch

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there is also no reference whatsoever to it in any of the earlier editions of the Platform Sutra, or in any of the literature relating to Hui-neng. Its contents, as will be seen, often parallel that of other works, but such similarities cannot serve to relate it to them chronologically. There are, however, several stories about Hui-neng’s career that appear only in this preface. That they were not copied, enlarged upon, or alluded to in other works indicates that these stories are of extremely late origin, for one of the major characteristics of the literature relating to Hui-neng is the borrowing of biographical details from earlier sources. In this instance the details are too striking to enable us to entertain the possibility that this is an early work, and that the stories it contains were arbitrarily rejected by later writers. The preface gives the exact hour and day on which the Sixth Patriarch was born. No other work provides this information. It tells of the arrival of mysterious monks who gave the newborn child a name. This pleasant little tale is also an invention of the preface. The story of the acquisition of land for templebuilding and the appearance of the Four Deva Kings is likewise found for the first time here. This is true, too, of the description of the Master stopping at scenic spots to select suitable sites for the temple buildings. The concluding story about the dragon is mentioned only in the Sung kao-seng chuan.10 Of Fa-hai himself we know almost nothing. Other than the mention in the Platform Sutra (sec. 55), which states: “This Platform Sutra was compiled by the head monk Fa-hai, who on his death entrusted it to his fellow teacher Taots’an,” and the notice in section 57, where it is stated: “This priest was originally a native of Ch’ü-chiang hsien in Shao-chou,” we have no information whatsoever. Presumably the priest mentioned in section 57 is Fa-hai; at least the compiler of the Ching-te ch’uan-teng lu seems to have thought so, for the information concerning Fa-hai’s place of origin is repeated in that work.11 The notice in the Ch’üan T’ang wen, preceding the text of the preface, which gives a biographical note on Fa-hai, is clearly in error.12 It may be possible that Fa-hai

10   t 50, p. 755a. 11   t 51, p. 237a. Chan, The Platform Scripture, p. 22, assumes that the priest mentioned in section 57 is Hui-neng, and that there is thus a contradiction in the text between this section and section 2, which describes Hui-neng’s origins. Sections 55–57, however, seem clearly to be additions to the text, designed to promote the authenticity of Fa-hai’s particular school, or of the priests who succeeded him. I can see no justification for Chan’s assumption. 12   C TW, ch. 915 (XIX, 12032). The editors of Ch’üan T’ang wen have mistakenly followed information concerning the Fa-hai mentioned in the Sung kao-seng chuan, t50, pp. 736c–37a, but this is clearly a different person. See Ui, Zenshū shi kenkyū, II, 253. Paul W. Kroll - 978-90-04-38020-2 Downloaded from Brill.com11/15/2020 06:09:18AM via San Francisco State University

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can be identified with Chih-hai, mentioned in the Li-tai fa-pao chi,13 as a disciple of the Sixth Patriarch, but there exists no corroborating evidence. In addition to the contents of the work, which appears to be of a very late date, this preface is suspect because of the complete lack of any earlier versions, or even indications that there ever were any. It is substantially the same as its Yüan dynasty counterpart, and may best be considered as a variant version of the text found in the Yüan edition of the Platform Sutra. That it is included in the Ch’üan T’ang wen is accounted for by the uncritical attitude of its compilers, who while making an exhaustive search for T’ang materials, included much of dubious authenticity. Fa-hai’s preface would appear to have no historical validity whatsoever as a source for Hui-neng’s biography. Another inscription which can be placed in the same category is the Kuanghsiao ssu i-fa t’a-chi,14 attributed to the priest Fa-ts’ai and dated 676. It commemorates the burial of Hui-neng’s hair after he had received tonsure at the hands of Yin-tsung at the Fa-hsing Temple15 in Canton. The text details the history of the establishment of an ordination platform at the Fa-hsing Temple by Gunabhadra, the planting in 502 of a bo tree by Chih-yao, and his prediction that 160 years16 later some one would come to preach the doctrine before countless people. All this information is found in Fa-hai’s preface. The text then tells how Yin-tsung was impressed by Hui-neng’s ability, how the latter’s head was shaven, and goes on to recount that an eight-sided seven-storey pagoda was erected on the site where the hair was buried. There is no mention of this inscription in early sources, and it is not given in the Sung kao-seng chuan, which relied on such inscriptions for a large part of its information. The original inscription is said to have been destroyed, and a new one erected in 1612.17 Its contents and the fact that it is not mentioned elsewhere, lead one to conclude that it is of late origin, and not of sufficient historical validity to be used as a source for Hui-neng’s biography. One item from the Ch’üan T’ang wen requires further mention. This is the request, previously discussed, for Hui-neng to appear at the imperial court.18 Here it is attributed to the Emperor Chung-tsung, and relates how Shen-hsiu and Hui-an, while at court, stated: “In the south is the Ch’an Master [Hui]-neng, who was in secret given the robe and Dharma by the Master [Hung]-jen,” and 13   t 51, p. 182c. 14   C TW, ch. 912 (XIX, 11996). The text is also found in Kuang-hsiao ssu chih, ch. 10, pp. 11b–12a. 15  An old name for the Kuang-hsiao Temple. 16  Fa-hai’s preface gives 170 years. 17  Tokiwa Daijō, Shina Bukkyō shiseki ki’nenshū hyōkai, p. 34. 18   C TW, ch. 17 (I, 241). See above, p. 31.

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The Birth Of A Patriarch

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suggested that he be called to court. The text then reports that the envoy Hsieh Chien was dispatched to tender the invitation. The notice here is untitled and bears no date. In the biographies of Hui-neng this invitation is frequently mentioned, but there is absolutely no corroborating evidence to show that such a request was issued by the court. Indeed, the fact that it is undated here, and that there are inconsistencies in the attribution of the invitation itself, make one hesitate to accept it as valid.19 Furthermore, the very nature of the request, in which two of the great Ch’an Masters of the day demean their teaching to such an extent as to acknowledge the precedence of another’s doctrines, would indicate that this text is merely a fabrication on the part of the adherents of Southern Ch’an. This story has been lent dignity by the fact that it is included in the biography of Shen-hsiu in the Chiu T’ang shu.20 Here the request for Hui-neng’s attendance at court is attributed to the Empress Wu. The notice also describes the distinction made between Northern and Southern Ch’an; but since this distinction did not exist during Shen-hsiu’s time, its inclusion in the Chiu T’ang shu indicates that the compilers of this history were relying on late sources for their information. The first record of Hui-neng to which any degree of authenticity can be attached is the passage in the Leng-chia shih-tzu chi which includes his name along with those of ten other disciples of the Fifth Patriarch.21 Although only his name is mentioned, there is not much reason to doubt its authenticity, since it is recorded in a history compiled by a priest of the sect that was to become the rival school to that of Shen-hui and Hui-neng. For our next information about Hui-neng we must turn to the inscription composed by the poet Wang Wei.22 Written at the request of Shen-hui, it mentions incidents in the life of Hui-neng as they were known to Wang Wei. Unfortunately, the inscription is not dated, so that the exact year in which it was written cannot be determined.23 In summary, its contents are as follows: 19  See above, p. 31. 20   C TS 191, p. 14a. 21  See above, p. 17. 22   Wang Yu-ch’eng chi-chien-chu, pp. 446–49. The inscription is entitled Neng ch’an-shih pei. 23  Hu Shih, “Ch’an (Zen) Buddhism in China, Its History and Method,” Philosophy East and West, III (no. 1, April, 1953), in the same article gives two different dates for the inscription: p. 10, “about 734”; p. 13, “at the time of Shen-hui’s exile” (i.e., 753–56). Gernet, “Biographie du Maître Chen-houei du Ho-tsö,” Journal Asiatique, 249 (1951), 48, gives the probable date as 740. He reasons that since Wang Wei was made Censor of General Affairs in 739, and because he is given this title in the text of the Shen-hui yü-lu (Hu Shih, Shen-hui ho-shang

Paul W. Kroll - 978-90-04-38020-2 Downloaded from Brill.com11/15/2020 06:09:18AM via San Francisco State University

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The Ch’an Master of Ts’ao-ch’i was surnamed Lu, and the place of his origin is unknown. He lived in a barbarian village and, while still young, went to Master Jen at Huang-mei. Here his genius was recognized and he was transmitted the robe symbolic of the teaching and told to leave. For sixteen years he stayed among merchants and laborers, and then met the Dharma-master Yin-tsung, a lecturer on the Nirvāṇa Sutra. Yin-tsung was impressed, shaved Hui-neng’s head, and ordained him as a priest. Hui-neng then “loosed the rain of his Dharma.” He preached that “he who forbears is without birth and therefore without self,” that “meditation is to enter without a place to enter; wisdom is to depend on nothing.” He remarked how difficult it was “to enter the sudden teaching,” and stated that “to give in donation the seven treasures as numerous as the sands in the Ganges, to practice for innumerable kalpas, to exhaust all the ink in the world, is not the equivalent of spending one’s life with nothing more to do (wu-wei) and having a compassion unfettered by anything.” We are then told that the Empress Wu summoned him to court, but that he declined the invitation, and that she then sent him cloth for garments and silks in offering. At an unknown date he told his disciples that he was about to die, and at once a mysterious fragrance permeated the room and a bright rainbow appeared. When he had finished eating, he spread his sitting-cloth and passed away. Mountains tumbled, we are told, rivers ran dry, and the birds and monkeys cried in anguish. Again, on an unknown date, his sacred coffin was moved to Ts’ao-ch’i, and his body was placed, seated, in an unidentified place. In addition, we are informed, it was in his middle age that Shen-hui first met Hui-neng. This, then, is what Wang Wei knew of Hui-neng when he composed his inscription. Although no precise dating is possible, it was made sometime between 732, when the meeting at Hua-t’ai took place, and Wang Wei’s death in 759. Roughly during this same period Shen-hui’s speeches were being recorded by his disciples and a work detailing the biographies of the Chinese Patriarchs was in circulation.24 Thus, at the same time that Wang Wei’s i-chi, p. 137; Gernet, Entretiens du Maître de Dhyāna Chen-houei du Ho-tsö, p. 63), it was probably written after this date. 24  In addition to the biographies contained in the Shen-hui yü-lu (Suzuki text), pp. 53–64, we have reference to a lost work, the Shih-tzu hsieh-mo chuan, which is mentioned in the P’u-t’i-ta-mo Nan-tsung ting shih-fei lun (Hu Shih, Shen-hui ho-shang i-chi, p. 159; Gernet, Entretiens…, p. 81; Hu Shih, “Hsin-chiao-ting te Tun-huang hsieh-pen Shen-hui ho-shang i-chu liang-chung,” cylyyc, XXIX [no. 2, February, 1958], 838), and which also contained

Paul W. Kroll - 978-90-04-38020-2 Downloaded from Brill.com11/15/2020 06:09:18AM via San Francisco State University

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vague and imprecise inscription was being composed there probably existed a much more detailed version of the biography of Hui-neng. This version biographies of the Patriarchs. The title of this lost work is the same as an alternate title to the Li-tai fa-pao chi (see above, p. 40), and there is a very close resemblance between the biographical material in the Li-tai fa-pao chi and the Shen-hui yü-lu (Suzuki text). Therefore, we may be justified in assuming that there may have been a close relationship between these three works, and that a fairly detailed biography of Hui-neng was in use in Shen-hui’s school at the time that Wang Wei’s inscription was being written.  The problem of the dating of Shen-hui’s works remains. If we knew accurately when they were written, they would serve to pinpoint certain elements in the development of the story of Hui-neng’s biography. The only work for which we have an exact date, however, is the Shen-hui yü-lu (Suzuki text). The year the manuscript was transcribed is given as 791 (the year of the era and the cyclical designation do not correspond. See Gernet, “Complément aux entretiens du Maître de Dhyāna Chen-houei,” BEFEO, XLIV [no. 2, 1954], 454). The Li-tai fa-pao chi may be dated at around 780. Hu Shih, “Hsin-chiaoting…,” p. 873, estimates that the Tun-huang manuscript of the P’u-t’i-ta-mo Nan-tsung ting shih-fei lun (which contains mention of the lost Shih-tzu hsieh-mo chuan) was made sometime during the T’ien-pao era (742–756). This does not provide us with a particularly precise date; however, the contents of Shen-hui’s works furnish certain clues to the approximate date of certain events. Contained are accounts of Shen-hui’s meetings with various officials; and when the biographies of these officials are consulted, it is possible to date approximately when these meetings took place. For example, a conversation between Shen-hui and the Minister Chang Yüeh is recorded (Hu Shih, Shen-hui ho-shang i-chi, p. 115; Gernet, Entretiens…, p. 31), and since Chang Yüeh died in 731, we know that the meeting took place prior to this date. Again Fang Kuan (697–763), as Gernet points out (see Gernet, “Complément…,” p. 455, fn. 1), is mentioned as holding the rank of Grand Secretary of the Imperial Chancellery (Shen-hui yü-lu [Suzuki text], p. 42) at the time he questioned Shen-hui. Since Fang Kuan (Biography in CTS 111, pp. 2a–6b) held this rank between 744 and 755, and later achieved a higher rank, it would indicate that the conversation took place some time during this period, and furthermore that the text was compiled at the same time, since Fang Kuan would have been referred to by the highest rank he achieved if it had been compiled later. It would thus appear safe to place Shenhui’s writings between 732, when the meeting at Hua-t’ai took place, and the end of the T’ien-pao era, 756.  There remains, however, one further problem: because Shen-hui’s works were recorded by his disciples and we have a manuscript made as late as 791, we might be justified in questioning to what degree the texts have been altered, emended, or refined. There is no way of arriving at a definite conclusion to this problem, but there seems no particular reason to assume that the texts do not represent Shen-hui’s own words, or a close approximation of them. These works did not persist in China; it is only through their preservation at Tun-huang that we have knowledge of them. Several copies did make their way to Japan around the middle of the ninth century (the P’u-t’i-ta-mo Nan-tsung ting shih-fei lun is included in Engyō’s list of 839 (Reiganji oshō shōrai hōmon dōgu mokuroku, t55, to

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was quite similar in content to the autobiographical section of the Platform Sutra.25 From the text of Wang Wei’s inscription, it is evident that he knew neither the place of Hui-neng’s origin nor the date of his death, neither his age nor any of the details of his life that Shen-hui’s school describes, other than that he had received the robe from the Fifth Patriarch. Wang Wei, however, knew several stories which are found neither in Shen-hui’s works nor in the Platform Sutra. These are the stories concerning the period between the time Hui-neng left the temple of the Fifth Patriarch and the time he arrived at Ts’ao-ch’i. Wang Wei mentions that Hui-neng spent sixteen years26 among merchants and laborers, then met Yin-tsung, the preacher of the Nirvāṇa Sutra, under whom he took tonsure and became a priest. This story appears in greatly expanded form in later accounts, but not directly in any associated with Shen-hui and his school.27 It would seem then, that in the third, fourth, and fifth decades of the eighth century there were two unrelated groups of legends about Hui-neng, one centering about his experiences from birth until the time that he left the Fifth Patriarch, and the other concerned with the time after he had left Huang-mei until he became a priest and started teaching at Ts’ao-ch’i. Eventually these legends were brought together, rationalized, and presented as one cohesive story. There is no way of telling, in any of these accounts, where facts stop and legends begin. No evidence exists to corroborate any of the details of the story. The biography of a Patriarch was evolving, slowly, by trial and error, just as  be called Shen-hui yü-lu) is found in Ennin’s list of 847 (Nittō shin gushōgyō mokuroku, t55, p. 1084a), Enchin’s list of 857 (Nihon biku Enchin nittō guhō mokuroku, t55, p. 1101a), p. 1073b); the Nan-yang Wen-ta tsa-cheng i (apparently the correct title for what has come as well as his list of 859 (Chishō daishi shōrai mokuroku, t55, 1106c), and in Eichō’s list of 1094 (Tōiki dentō mokuroku, t55, p. 1164b); a work known as Ho-tse ho-shang ch’an-yao is found in Enchin’s list of 857 (t55, p. 1101a), as well as his list of 859 (t55, p. 1106c), but these works are no longer extant. The failure of Shen-hui’s works to persist in the Ch’an tradition may justify our assumption that they were not subjected to any great degree of textual tampering.  The above considerations lead us to believe that at the time that Wang Wei’s inscription was made there was also in current use in Shen-hui’s school a fairly detailed biographical account of the careers of the Chinese Patriarchs, including one descriptive of Hui-neng. 25  See above, p. 32. 26  The Li-tai fa-pao chi, t51, p. 183c, gives seventeen years. 27  It is included in the Li-tai fa-pao chi in considerable detail. It is not found under the biography of Hui-neng, which closely resembles the Shen-hui yü-lu (Suzuki text), but in the supplementary material which follows the biography.

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the legends of the Indian Patriarchs and their Chinese descendants gradually evolved during the eighth century. If we consider all the available material, and eliminate patiently all the inconsistencies by picking the most likely legends, we can arrive at a fairly credible biography of Hui-neng.28 If, on the other hand, we eliminate the legends and the undocumented references to the Sixth Patriarch, we may only conclude that there is, in fact, almost nothing that we can really say about him. We may speculate that perhaps the answer lies somewhere between the two. We know that a man named Hui-neng existed, and that he must have had some renown, if only in the area of southern China in which he lived. Obviously many legends grew up about him, legends which conceivably contain within them a certain amount of fact; but what these facts are can in no way be determined. Much of the legend may well have been devised by Shen-hui; again we have no way of knowing to what extent it represents Shen-hui’s invention. As the story of Hui-neng grows, as material such as is found in Fa-hai’s “Preface” is added, it develops far beyond the rather simple version current at the middle of the eighth century. But by stressing the role of Hui-neng the Patriarch, Shen-hui was, perhaps unconsciously, helping to change the whole character of Ch’an. A process of humanization was taking place, a shift in emphasis from the Buddha to the man, from the words of the Buddha to the words of the Patriarchs. This tendency became more noticeable in the following century, with the veneration that the new Ch’an schools of Kiangsi and Hunan bestowed on their priests and the words that they had spoken. Among the books brought to Japan by Saichō is a curious work, the Sōkei daishi betsuden,29 which is no longer extant in China. A biography of Hui-neng, it amalgamates the many legends and also adds a considerable body of new material, much of it demonstrably unreliable.30 It is the product of an entirely 28  For such an attempt, see Ui, Zenshü shi kenkyū, II, 173–248. 29  zz2B, 19, 5, 483a–88a. It has a lengthy original title descriptive of its contents. The title Sōkei daishi betsuden was given the work by its Japanese editor Sohō in 1762. The existing manuscript was written in 803 and obtained by Saichō on his trip in 804. For a discussion of the work, see Hu Shih, “T’an-ching k’ao chih i,” Hu Shih wen-ts’un, IV, 292–301, and Matsumoto Bunzaburō, Bukkyō shi zakkō, pp. 94–98. A word of caution in regard to the use of the Zokuzōkyō edition is required. There are apparently a considerable number of misprints in the text. A facsimile reproduction in scroll form exists, but I have been unable to locate a copy. Thus, in the summary of the work given in the following pages, what appears to be an error on the part of the Sōkei daishi betsuden itself may in fact be an error on the part of the editors of the Zokuzōkyō. 30  Hu Shih, “T’an-ching k’ao chih-i,” pp. 299–300, discusses eight errors he has discovered in the work.

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different school of Ch’an, that of Hsing-t’ao,31 a disciple of the Sixth Patriarch, who was the keeper of the Master’s pagoda at Ts’ao-ch’i. Some of the stories parallel those already seen in the Shen-hui yü-lu, others are mentioned but not elaborated upon by Wang Wei, and still others are entirely new. Obviously, though, it is the source for many of the stories on which later works based their biographies. The Tsu-t’ang chi, Sung kao-seng chuan, Ching-te ch’uan-teng lu, and the “Preface” by Fa-hai use much of the material it contains, and it is quite probable that the missing books of the Pao-lin chuan included some of the material found here. The work can be dated approximately to 782 or 783 by virtue of a statement within the text itself to the effect that seventy-one years have elapsed between Hsien-t’ien 2 (713), the date of Hui-neng’s death, and Chien-chung 2 (782).32 This represents a miscalculation: actually it is only sixty-eight years; however, it is safe to say that this work was composed around 782. Because of the new elements and variant stories contained, it is illustrative of the process whereby the legend of Hui-neng was formed. Material of a pseudofactual character was introduced, precise dates were given, names cited, and the texts of manufactured imperial proclamations presented. Later works used this material, eliminating the obvious errors, but retaining the basic stories. A detailed summary of its contents will be given to indicate the sudden expansion of the legend of Hui-neng. The work begins with a description of the history of the Pao-lin Temple at Ts’ao-ch’i, and includes the prediction by Chih-yao that 170 years in the future the Supreme Dharma Treasure would be propagated here. The account of Huineng’s life follows: he is surnamed Lu, is a native of Hsin-chou, and lost both his father and his mother at the age of three.33 Coming to Ts’ao-ch’i in 670 at the age of thirty,34 he meets a villager, Liu Chih-lüeh, whose relative, the nun Wu-chin-ts’ang, had left home to go to the Shan-chien Temple to devote herself to the recitation of the Nirvāṇa Sutra. Hui-neng hears her, and the next morning asks her to recite it to him, explaining that he is unable to read.35 “If you are 31  The Sung kao-seng chuan, t50, p. 755b, and the Ching-te ch’uan-teng lu, t51, p. 236c, give his name as Ling-t’ao. 32  See p. 1730 below. 33  This is the only source that says that Hui-neng’s mother and father both died when he was young. 34  This work gives his death date as 713, at the age of seventy-six. He would thus be thirtythree, by Chinese reckoning, not thirty, in 670. 35  The legend of Hui-neng’s illiteracy, found in section 8 of the Platform Sutra, and constantly repeated in later works, makes its first appearance here. It is a convenient means to emphasize that Ch’an is a teaching which must be transmitted silently from mind to

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The Birth Of A Patriarch

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illiterate, how can you understand its meaning?” he is asked. Hui-neng’s reply is: “What has the principle of the Buddha nature to do with understanding written words? What’s so strange about not knowing written words?” All present admire his response and suggest that he become a monk, which he does,36 staying at the Pao-lin Temple for three years, thus fulfilling the prediction that 170 years in the future someone would come to preach there. At this time, we are informed, Hui-neng is thirty-three years of age.37 At the west stone grotto, a place in the area, was a certain Yüan ch’an-shih, who practiced meditation, as well as another priest, Hui-chi by name. The Master encounters both these men and is impressed by their wisdom. From Hui-chi he hears of the Master Jen at Huang-mei, and on the third day of the first month of Hsien-heng 5 (= February 14, 674), when he is thirty-four,38 he leaves Ts’ao-ch’i to attend on Hung-jen at Huang-mei, traversing wild and desolate areas, and passing alone and unafraid parts where fierce tigers abound. His meeting with Hung-jen is recounted: “Where are you from?” the Fifth Patriarch asks. “From Hsin-chou in Ling-nan,” is the reply. “How can a person from Hsin-chou in Ling-nan expect to become a Buddha?” Hung-jen asks. Hui-neng replies: “What is the difference in Buddha-nature between someone from Hsin-chou in Ling-nan and you?”39 Hung-jen is impressed, and recognizes Hui-neng’s talent, but puts him to work for eight months pounding rice. Because his body is too light, he ties a large rock around his waist in order to give himself added weight. Later the Fifth Patriarch goes to the threshing room and talks with Hui-neng, and afterwards calls him to his room, where he expounds the Dharma, and tells of the transmission from Kāśyapa to Ānanda to Śaṇavāsa to Upagupta, and “then on through the twenty-eight Indian Patriarchs to Dharmatrāta,”40 and then through the Chinese Patriarchs, until it reached Hung-jen, who is the Fifth. Then he transmits the Law to Hui-neng, explains how it was not cut off with Sirhha bhikṣu, the twenty-fourth Patriarch, and mind, without recourse to written words. The frequency with which Hui-neng quotes the sutras in the Platform Sutra would seem to belie the legend of his illiteracy, unless he learned to read in later life. The question is academic; we do not know enough about Huineng to determine whether he could or could not read. 36  He is not, however, ordained at this time. 37  Another miscalculation; he would be thirty-six. 38  This too is an error; he would have been thirty-seven in 674. 39  See Translation, sec. 3. 40  The Sōkei daishi betsuden seems to have followed a tradition similar to the Li-tai fa-pao chi, but omitting the third Indian Patriarch. It does not, however, change the name of Dharmatrāta to Bodhidharmatrāta. It would seem that even at this late date the name of Bodhidharma had not gained full currency among all the schools of Ch’an.

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sends Hui-neng off, bearing the, robe and bowl symbolic of the transmission. He is accompanied by Hung-jen as far as Chiu-chiang station, from where he sets out for the south. Meanwhile the Fifth Patriarch returns to his mountain, where he keeps silent and does not preach. When asked the reason, he requests that the assemblage at the temple disperse, as he has nothing more to say, since the Law is no longer at his place. Three days after explaining that Hui-neng has gone south, taking the Law with him, Hung-jen passes away. His funeral is held to the accompaniment of lamentations of birds and beasts and the forces of nature. A certain ex-general of the fourth rank, Ch’en Hui-ming,41 goes in pursuit, catches up with Hui-neng at Ta-yü Peak, and, after indicating that he is not after the robe and the bowl, receives the teaching from Hui-neng. Several hundred others are following behind, but Hui-ming manages to turn them away. Of Hui-ming we are told that he did not gain enlightenment at this time, but later, going to the top of Mount Lu-shan, attained it after three years of effort, and afterwards spent his time teaching at Meng-shan.42 Hui-neng now returns south to Ts’ao-ch’i, but, under the pressure of men of evil intent, goes into hiding on the borders between Ssu-hui43 and Huai-chi44 in Kuang-chou, living for five years among hunters. When he is thirty-nine, in the first year of I-feng,45 he arrives at the Chihchih Temple,46 which is presided over by Yin-tsung, an authority on the Nirvāṇa Sutra. He participates in an argument among several monks as to whether the banner on the staff is moving or whether the wind is moving, declaring that it is neither; it is the mind that moves. Impressed, Yin-tsung talks with Hui-neng on the following day and discovers that he is the heir of the Fifth Patriarch. Eventually, on the seventeenth day of the first month of I-feng 1 (= February 6, 676) his head is shaved by Yin-tsung, and on the twenty-eighth day of the second month (= March 17, 676) he is ordained. The names and titles of several participating priests are mentioned, and the prediction made by Paramārtha when he planted two bo trees by the ordination platform is described. Later 41  His biography is given in Sung kao-seng chuan, t50, p. 756b–c. See Translation, p. 134, n. 47. 42  I-ch’un hsien, Kiangsi. 43  Ssu-hui hsien, Kwangtung. 44  Huai-chi hsien, Kwangsi. 45  Again a mistake in dating. Hsien-heng 5 is 674; I-feng 1 is 676. Yet he is said to have spent five years in hiding. Note that Wang Wei gives the period of time as sixteen years and the Li-tai fa-pao chi as seventeen years. 46  Another name for the Fa-hsing Temple. See Ui, Zenshū shi kenkyū, II, 205–6, for a discussion of the changes of name of this temple.

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Hui-neng preaches to the assembly and engages in a question-and-answer session with the thirteen-year-old acolyte from the Ho-tse Temple, Shen-hui.47 Hui-neng is asked to remain at the Chih-chih Temple, but he expresses the desire to return to the Pao-lin Temple in Ts’ao-ch’i, and is seen off by Yin-tsung and some 3,000 followers. On the fifteenth day of the first month of Shen-lung 1 (= February 13, 705) the Emperor Kao-tsung48 requests Hui-neng to come to court. The proclamation states that famous priests from all over the country have assembled at court, and that Shen-hsiu and Hui-an have recommended that Hui-neng be called, since he in secret received the teaching from Hung-jen and possesses the robe and bowl of Bodhidharma. It goes on to say that the court is dispatching the vice-commissioner Hsieh Chien to greet the Master, and that it is hoped that he will comply at once. Hui-neng declines, pleading illness, and says that he desires to remain at his own temple to regain his health. Here follows a passage in which Hsieh Chien asks Hui-neng questions concerning the teaching, to which Hui-neng makes reply. Hsieh Chien then returns to the capital. On the second day of the fourth month of Shen-lung 3 (= May 7, 707) a proclamation praising Hui-neng, accompanied by a gift of a priest’s gown and 500 bolts of cloth, is sent to Hui-neng. On the eighteenth day of the eleventh month (= December 16, 707) a tablet entitled Fa-ch’üan Temple is sent, along with orders to repair the Buddha-hall and the sutra storehouse at the Master’s temple, and also to convert the Master’s old house in Hsin-chou into a temple called Kuo-en.49 In 71250 the Master goes to the Kuo-en Temple to see about the repairs. In 711 he has a pagoda for his coffin built at Ts’ao-ch’i. In the seventh month of 713 he urges the hurried completion of the building, but his disciples do not understand the import of his words. In the eighth month of this year, in answer to Shen-hui,51 who asks to whom the robe is to be handed down, Hui-neng replies that it is to be given to no one, but that seventy years after his death two Bodhisattvas will appear, one a layman who will restore his temple, 47  Here Shen-hui is called a young boy at the time he visits Hui-neng; he appears once as a youth in the Platform Sutra (sec. 48). At any rate, Shen-hui, who was born in 670, would have been seven, not thirteen, if the Sōkei daishi betsuden is to be believed. 48  Kao-tsung died December 28, 683; thus the attribution is obviously in error. For this proclamation, see pp. 30, 65. 49  Both of these proclamations are erroneously attributed to Kao-tsung. They appear (as one proclamation) in the Sung kao-seng chuan, t50, pp. 755b–c; in the Tsu-t’ang chi, I, 94–96; the Ching-te ch’uan-teng lu, t51, p. 236c; and the Yüan edition of the Platform Sutra, t48, p. 360a. 50  This date is suspicious; it is later than the next one mentioned. 51  In the Platform Sutra it is Fa-hai who asks this question.

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and the other a priest who will propagate his teachings.52 The Master passes away on the third day of the eighth month of this year (= August 28, 713), while in a sitting position. His age at death is seventy-six. The reactions of nature and the supernatural phenomena which occurred are described. We now hear that a metal band was fitted about his neck, his body was lacquered completely, and on the thirteenth day of the eleventh month (= December 5, 713) he was placed in a coffin. In 739 someone dragged the Master’s body out into the garden and attempted to cut off the head, but one of the monks, hearing the sound of grating metal, rushed out, and the intruder fled.53 The text then goes on to explain that it has been seventy-one years from the Master’s death in 713 until the present (782). Next we are presented with an utter confusion in dates. We are told that in 713 one of the Master’s leading disciples, Hsing-t’ao, was charged with guarding the Master’s robe, and that thirty-five years after this date Wei Ch’ü54 wrote an inscription for the Master, which was effaced in 719 by a lay disciple of Northern Ch’an, Wu P’ing-i, who wrote a text of his own. Then follows a story about a certain Huang ch’an-shih, who had studied under the Fifth Patriarch and then had returned to his home temple, where he practiced meditation sitting. Ta-jung, who had spent thirty years under Hui-neng, happened to pass by Huang’s temple, and, as a result of a conversation between the two priests, Huang discovered that he had been sitting thirty years in vain, went to the Sixth Patriarch, and gained enlightenment in 711.55 Next we have the text of a mandate by the Emperor Su-tsung, dated the seventeenth day of the twelfth month of Shang-yüan 2 (= January 16, 762),56 in which Hsing-t’ao, together with his lay disciple Wei Li-chien,57 is requested to accornpany the imperial comrnissioner, Liu Ch’u-chiang,58 to court, bearing the Sixth Patriarch’s robe. On the first day of the first month of Ch’ien-yüan 52  We have seen this prediction before as twenty years. It so appears in the Platform Sutra (sec. 49). The reason for seventy years is unclear, but it may very well refer to the compilers of the Sōkei daishi betsuden, which was made about seventy years after Hui-neng’s death. 53  This story, first introduced by Shen-hui (see p. 28), is greatly enlarged in later works. See Sung kao-seng chuan, t50, p. 755b, and Ching-te ch’uan-teng lu, t51, p. 236c. 54  See Translation, p. 125, n. 5. 55  This story is found, under the names of the individual priests concerned, in the Ching-te ch’uan-teng lu, t51, p. 237c (under Chih-huang); p. 243c (under Hsüan-su). See Ui, Zenshū shi kenkyū, II, 262–63, for the variations of these priest’s names. 56  Another dating error. The year is probably Ch’ien-yüan 1 (= January 20, 759). 57  Unknown. 58  Unknown.

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The Birth Of A Patriarch

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2 (= February 3, 759), Hsing-t’ao declines this invitation, pleading illness, and sends in his stead his disciple Hui-hsiang,59 who takes the robe with him. On the seventeenth day of the first month (= February 19, 759), Hsing-t’ao passes away at the age of sixty-nine.60 Hui-hsiang is awarded a purple robe by the emperor, and a layman who accompanies him is made a priest. There follow several imperial mandates, bestowing names on temples and changing temple names.61 Next we have a lengthy request, undated, in which Hui-hsiang asks permission to leave the court, and a statement by the emperor in which Huihsiang’s accomplishments are praised. Then on the twentieth day of the eleventh month of Ch’ien-yüan 3 (= December 31, 760) Emperor Su-tsung sends the imperial commissioner Ch’eng Ching-ch’i62 to offer incense before the grave of the Sixth Patriarch, whereupon from within the grave a white light leaps forth, soaring straight up to a remarkable height. The Sōkei daishi betsuden then concludes its story by quoting a mandate sent by the emperor when he returned the robe to Ts’ao-ch’i in Pao-ying 2 (763).63 The emperor states that in a dream the Sixth Patriarch had asked him to return the robe to Ts’ao-ch’i, and therefore he is sending the General Yang Ch’ung-ching64 with the robe, which is a National Treasure, and should be installed in the temple and guarded from loss. Here follows the mention of six miraculous occurrences which happened during the Master’s life and after his death. This, then, is the legend as it appears in one particular school of Ch’an, that of Hsing-t’ao and his followers, in 782. Despite its numerous inaccuracies, this book is the source for much of the legend relating to Hui-neng. It should be noted that Shen-hui is mentioned but once, and then as a thirteen-year-old acolyte, and that no mention of a Platform Sutra or of its compiler, Fa-hai, is made. The work, in fact, is occupied with extolling the career of Hui-neng and establishing the validity of Hsing-t’ao and his line. It lays great emphasis on the 59  Biography unknown. The Sung kao-seng chuan, t50, p. 755c, gives his name as Ming-hsiang. 60  The Ching-te ch’uan-teng lu, t51, p. 244a, gives his age at death as ninety-five, but does not give the year. He is said to have received the posthumous title “Ta-hsiao ch’an-shih.” 61  It is not quite clear to which temple or buildings these apply. Presumably they refer to specific buildings at Ts’ao-ch’i, or to the temple built at the Master’s old home in Hsin-chou. 62  Unknown. 63  Although Pao-ying 2 is mentioned in the text, the mandate itself is dated the seventh day of the fifth month of Yung-t’ai 1 (= May 31, 765). Since a textual note remarks that the robe had been kept for seven years at the Tsung-ch’ih Temple, the latter date is more likely. The emperor was Tai-tsung. The text of this mandate is also found in ctw, ch. 48 (II, 646). 64  Unknown.

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transmission of the robe, and takes pains to indicate that it is still at Ts’ao-ch’i. This was perhaps necessary to counteract the claims of the Li-tai fa-pao chi, which informs us that this garment had been taken to Szechuan. The school of Northern Ch’an is virtually ignored; other than one mention of Shen-hsiu and a reference to Wu P’ing-i, we are unaware of a struggle between the two rival sects. It may well be that there was no longer much need to discuss the conflict at this time; at any rate, this work represents a local school of Ch’an, far removed from the capital cities, and the rivalry was of no particular concern to it. Unfortunately, the two concluding volumes of the Pao-lin chuan, the work which would contribute most to our understanding of the Hui-neng legend, are missing. We may assume, however, that the Pao-lin chuan contained a lengthy biography of Hui-neng, enlarged greatly on the legend, and may well have incorporated much of the material found in the Sōkei daishi betsuden. Later historical works relied on the Pao-lin chuan, as we have seen, followed its theory of the twenty-eight Indian Patriarchs, and in all likelihood based their biographies of Hui-neng on material found there. There are two further sources for Hui-neng’s biography, which are of interest because they provide conflicting information on the date of his death, given as 713 in most sources. One is the inscription by Liu Tsung-yüan,65 written in 81566 to commemorate the award of the posthumous title Ta-chien to the Sixth Patriarch. The other is the inscription by Liu Yü-hsi,67 made in the following year. Both inscriptions state that they were composed 106 years after Huineng’s death. This would date the event at either 709 or 710. These inscriptions are important, if only to indicate that there was a lack of unanimity even in regard to the date Hui-neng is said to have died. Tsung-mi provides a brief biographical sketch of the Sixth Patriarch in his Yüan-chüeh ching ta-shu ch’ao,68 but adds no significant information which has not been seen before. The Sung kao-seng chuan, while it does not add much to the knowledge of the legend, provides information on the posthumous honors done Hui-neng by a number of prominent officials.69 It does not shed much light on Hui-neng himself, but does indicate the prominence to which he had been lifted by Shen-hui’s campaign. We have no corroborative sources for many of the statements made, and we do not know on what this work based its information. We are informed that the vice-president of the Army Ministry, 65   Ts’ao-ch’i ti-liu-tsu tz’u-shih Ta-chien ch’an-shih pei, ctw, ch. 587 (XII, 7535). 66  Ui, Zenshū shi kenkyū, II, 179, believes that this date should be corrected to 816. 67   Ts’ao-ch’i liu-tsu Ta-chien ch’an-shih ti-erh pei ping-hsü, ctw, ch. 610 (XIII, 7824–25). 68  zz1, 14, 3, p. 277a. 69   t 50, pp. 755b–c.

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Sung Ting, made an inscription concerning Hui-neng to accompany some paintings made in a new building that Shen-hui built for the Sixth Patriarch at the Ho-tse Temple. These paintings told the lineage of the school, starting from the Tathāgatha, running through the Indian Patriarchs, and including the six Patriarchs in China.70 Fang Kuan71 wrote a preface for the pictures which represented the six generations in China. Sung Chih-wen72 paid a call on Hui-neng and wrote a long piece about it.73 Chang Yüeh (667–731)74 offered incense and presented a poem, presumably at Hui-neng’s tomb. Wu P’ing-i wrote a poem for the Sixth Patriarch, and since Nan-yüeh Huai-jang was casting a giant bell at the time, the verse was inscribed on it, in Sung Chih-wen’s hand. Sung Ching (662–737)75 paid his respects at the pagoda and questioned Hui-neng’s disciple Ling-t’ao76 about points of doctrine, and was pleased with the answers he received. The authority for all this information is not known. It is significant, however, that three of the men mentioned, Sung Chih-wen, Chang Yüeh, and Wu P’ing-i, are known to have been connected with Northern Ch’an. We are now informed that all these men had to with the Sixth Patriarch. Because this information is not recorded in other sources, much of it must be regarded as of fairly dubious authenticity. Let us close this “biography” of Hui-neng with a translation of one of the later sources, the section in the Ching-te ch’uan-teng lu devoted to Hui-neng. It is dated at 1004 and is illustrative of the legend in its full-blown form.

70  We are not told when these paintings were made, but it was presumably before 745, when Shen-hui went to Loyang. One may assume that there were thirteen patriarchs represented, conforming with Shen-hui’s theories of the transmission of the Dharma. 71  For his biography see cts 111, pp. 2b–6b and hts 139, pp. 1a–2b. He rose to be grand secretary of the Imperial Chancellery, vice-president of the Bureau of Justice, and president of the Grand Secretariat of the Left. He died in 763 at the age of sixty-seven. 72  His biography is in cts 190, pp. 9b–10b. A famed poet, he was recognized at court by the Empress Wu, but was in frequent difficulties and was exiled from time to time. He was allowed to commit suicide in the Hsien-t’ien era (712–713). He was at one time exiled to Ling-nan, so that it is possible that he visited the Sixth Patriarch at the time. See H. A. Giles, Chinese Biographical Dictionary, no. 1829. 73  Not preserved. 74  Biography in cts 97, pp. 7a–13b; hts 125, pp. 5a–9a. Biographical notice in Giles, Chinese Biographical Dictionary, no. 134. 75  Biography in cts 96, pp. 6a–10b; hts 124, 5b–9a. Biographical notice in Giles, Chinese Biographical Dictionary, no. 1830. 76  He appears in the Sōkei daishi betsuden as Hsing-t’ao.

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Master Hui-neng, the thirty-third Patriarch, was surnamed Lu, and his ancestors were natives of Fan-yang. During the Wu-te period [618–627] his father Hsing-tao served as a provincial official at Hsin-chou in Nan-hai, where he later became a resident. When Hui-neng was three years old his father died and his mother, who was faithful to her husband and did not remarry, brought him up. The older he got the more poverty-stricken did his home become, and he worked as a wood-cutter to earn a living. One day when he was taking wood to market, he heard a man reciting the Diamond Sutra. Startled, he inquired: “What Dharma is this? From where did you get it?” The man replied: “It is called the Diamond Sutra; I got it from Master Hungjen at Huang-mei.” Hui-neng told his mother at once what had happened and expressed his determination to visit this teacher for the sake of the Dharma. Going directly to Shao-chou, he met there Liu Chih-lüeh, a man of noble conduct, with whom he became friendly. Liu Chih-lüeh had an aunt, the nun Wuchin-ts’ang, who constantly recited the Nirvāṇa Sutra. Hui-neng listened for a while and then explained its meaning to her. Thereupon the nun brought one roll of the text to him and asked the meaning of certain words. Hui-neng said: “I don’t know written words, but if you want to know the Sutra’s meaning, then just ask me.” “If you can’t read the words, then how can you understand their meaning?” the nun asked. “The mysterious principle of all the Buddhas has nothing to do with words,” he replied. Amazed, the nun reported this to the village elders: “Hui-neng is a man of Tao. We should ask his favor and make offerings to him.” Those who who were about vied with each other to render him homage. Nearby was the site of an old temple, Pao-lin, and the populace decided to repair it so that Hui-neng might live there. People came from all over and soon the temple building was completed. One day Hui-neng suddenly thought to himself: “I am seeking the great Dharma. Why should I stop halfway?” The next day he went to the stone caves at the West Mountain in Ch’ang-lo hsien, where he met the Ch’an Master Chihyüan. Hui-neng requested permission to study with him. Chih-yüan said: “You look to be of noble manner and obviously are a superior person, scarcely like an ordinary man. I understand that the seal of the mind of the Indian Bodhidharma has been transmitted to Huang-mei [the Fifth Patriarch, Hung-jen]. You should go there and settle your doubts with

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The Birth Of A Patriarch

1735

him.” Hui-neng left and at once became a student of the Ch’an of the East Mountain at Huang-mei. This was in the second year of Hsien-heng [670]. The moment that Master Hung-jen saw him coming, without a word being spoken, he acknowledged his capacity. Later he transmitted the robe and the Dharma to Hui-neng and then had him remain in hiding in the area between Huai-chi and Ssu-hui. On the eighth day of the first month of the first year of I-feng [= January 28, 676] Hui-neng arrived in Nan-hai, and at the Fa-hsing Temple he met the Dharma-master Yin-tsung, who lectured on the Nirvāṇa Sutra. Here he found shelter under the eaves of the temple. One evening when the wind was stirring the temple banner, he heard two monks arguing. One said that it was the flag that was moving, the other that it was the wind. Back and forth they argued, but they were unable to realize the true principle. Hui-neng said: “Pardon a common layman for intruding into your lofty discussion, but it is neither the banner nor the wind that is moving; it is only your own mind that moves.” Yin-tsung overheard this remark and his flesh crept at the strangeness of it. The next day he invited Hui-neng to his room, and in response to his intense questions about the meaning of [his remark about] the banner and the wind, Hui-neng explained the principle in detail. Yin-tsung involuntarily arose, saying: “You are no ordinary man. Who was your teacher?” Hui-neng, hiding nothing, at once told him of how he had obtained the Dharma. Then Yin-tsung assumed the position of a disciple and begged for instruction in the essentials of Ch’an. He announced to the assembly: “I am a common man who has received the precepts, but now let us meet a living Bodhisattva,” and he pointed to the lay disciple Lu [Hui-neng] who was seated with the assembly and said: “This is he.” He asked Hui-neng to show the robe which served as proof of the transmission and had the assembly pay reverence to it. On the fifteenth day of the first month Yin-tsung, before a gathering of eminent Buddhists, shaved Hui-neng’s head. On the eighth day of the second month Hui-neng received the full precepts from the Vinayamaster Chih-kuang. The ordination platform had been set up by the Tripitaka Master Gunabhadra during the Sung dynasty and he had predicted that later a living Bodhisattva would receive the precepts there. And again, when the Tripitaka Master Paramārtha planted two bo trees beside the platform towards the end of the Liang dynasty, he had announced to the assemblage: “Some hundred and twenty years from now an enlightened man will preach the Supreme Vehicle beneath these bo trees and will bring salvation to countless multitudes.” When Hui-neng finished receiving the precepts he revealed the teaching of the East Mountain under these very trees, just as had been predicted.

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1736

Yampolsky

On the eighth day of the second month of the next year [= March 16, 677] Hui-neng told the assembly: “I no longer wish to stay here but would like to return to my old temple.” Yin-tsung and some thousand monks and laymen saw him off on his return to the Pao-lin Temple. Wei Ch’ü, the prefect of Shao-chou, invited him to turn the wheel of the Wondrous Law at the Ta-fan Temple and to teach the precepts of the formless mind-ground. His disciples recorded his sermons and they have been given the name T’an ching, and have been widely circulated throughout the country. The Master returned to Ts’ao-ch’i and let fall the rain of the Great Dharma, and at no time were there ever fewer than a thousand students under him. In the first year of Shen-lung [705] Emperor Chung-tsung issued a proclamation: “I have invited the two Masters Hui-an and Shen-hsiu to make offerings within the palace, and have studied the One Vehicle every moment that I can spare from the affairs of state. The two Masters have recommended you, saying: ‘In the south is the Ch’an Master Hui-neng, who in secret received the robe and the Dharma from Hung-jen. He is the one who should be questioned [concerning the teaching].’ I am dispatching the chief palace attendant Hsüeh Chien to extend my invitation. It is hoped that you will consider this [invitation] kindly and will come quickly to the capital.” Hui-neng declined, pleading illness, saying that he desired to spend what was left of his life among the forests [of the Pao-lin Temple]. Hsüeh Chien said: “All the Ch’an Masters in the capital say that if one wants to gain an understanding of the Way one must practice sitting in meditation. Without Ch’an meditation there is as yet no one who has gained emancipation. I wonder what your opinion of this is?” The Master answered: “The Way is realized through the mind. What should it have to do with a sitting posture! The sutra says: ‘If you think of the Tathāgata as sitting or lying down you are treading the path of heresy. Why? Because the Tathāgata comes from nowhere and goes nowhere.’77 When there is no birth and no death this is the pure dhyāna of the Tathāgata; when all things are empty, this is the pure sitting (tso) of the Tathāgata. Ultimately there is nothing to prove. So why bother with a sitting posture?”

77  The exact quotation has not been located. It paraphrases a passage in the Diamond Sutra: “If someone says that the Tathāgata comes and goes, sits or lies down, that person does not understand what I teach” (t8, p. 752b).

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1737

The Birth Of A Patriarch

Hsüeh Chien said: “When I return the emperor will be sure to question me. I beg of you to be so compassionate as to indicate to me the essentials of your teaching.” The Master said: “There is no light and darkness in Tao. Light and darkness suggest alternation. Light cannot be exhausted and then again it is exhausted.” Hsüeh Chien said: “Light symbolizes wisdom and darkness symbolizes the passions. If the practicer does not destroy the passions by illuminating them with wisdom, how can he escape from the endless cycle of birth and death?” The Master said: “To illumine the passions with wisdom is the shallow view of the Ṥrāvaka and Pratyekabuddha, the technique of the sheep and deer.78 No one with superior wisdom and great capacity (the Mahāyāna believer) is like this.” “What is the viewpoint of Mahāyāna?” asked Hsüeh Chien. The Master replied: “The nature of light and darkness is not two. The non­ dual nature is thus the real nature. The real nature does not decrease in the ignorant man, nor does it increase in the wise man. It stays in the midst of passions but is not disturbed; it exists in the state of samādhi but is not quieted. Not cut off, not persisting, not coming, not going, it exists neither in the middle, nor in the inside, nor on the outside. It is not born nor is it destroyed. Real nature and its form are in the absolute. It is always abiding and changeless. Given a name, it is the Tao.” Hsüeh Chien asked: “You talk about nonbirth and nondestruction. How do they differ from those of the heretics?” The Master replied: “When the heretics speak of nonbirth and non-destruction, they mean to put an end to birth with destruction and make destruction apparent with birth. Destruction, thus, is not destroyed, and birth bespeaks birthlessness. When I speak of nonbirth and nondestruction, I mean that from the outset there is no birth of itself, and again, there is no destruction. Therefore it is not the same [as the nonbirth and nondestruction] of the heretics. If you want to know the essentials of the mind, you must stop thinking about all distinctions of good and evil. When naturally you gain entrance to the pure mind, in the profound and eternal quietude, the miraculous activities are [as numberless] as the grains of sand in the Ganges.” Hsüeh Chien, while hearing these teachingṡ, suddenly attained a great awakening. Taking leave with profound reverence, he returned to the capital and reported what the Master had said in a memorial. An edict was issued thanking Hui-neng, and a special robe, five hundred bolts of silk, and a jeweled bowl were presented to him. 78  Reference is to the parable of the burning house in the Lotus Sutra (t9, p. 76a).

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On the nineteenth day of the twelfth month a proclamation was issued changing the name of the old Pao-lin Temple to Chung-hsing Temple. On the eighteenth day of the eleventh month [of Shen-lung] 3 [= December 16, 707] imperial orders were issued to the prefect of Shao-chou to redecorate the temple, and a tablet, inscribed Fa-ch’üan Temple, was presented. The Master’s old home in Hsin-chou was converted into the Kuo-en Temple. One day the Master said to the assembly: “All of you good friends! Each one of you purify your mind and listen to my sermon. The mind of each one of you is itself the Buddha. Do not have any doubts about it. Outside the mind there is not one thing that can be established. It is your own mind that produces the ten thousand things. That is why the sutra says: ‘If mind is produced all things are produced; if mind is destroyed all things are destroyed.’79 If you wish to attain omniscient wisdom, you must penetrate the samādhi of one form and the samādhi of oneness. If, under all circumstances, you do not abide in form, if within that form neither hatred nor love is produced, if there is no taking and no casting away, if you do not think of gain and loss, then you will be calm and quiet, empty and unconcerned. This is called the samādhi of one form. If under all circumstances—walking, staying, sitting, lying—you possess pure direct mind, the place where you sit in meditation becomes, without moving, the Pure Land. This is called the samādhi of oneness. “If a person is endowed with these two samādhis, he is like a seed within the ground which has been retained and nourished well, and then has been brought to fruit. These two samādhis are just like this. “The sermon that I have just preached is like the rain that waters the great earth, and your Buddha natures are like the many seeds that sprout when they encounter the wetness. Those who embrace my teachings will without fail gain enlightenment (bodhi) and those who follow my practices will surely realize the wondrous fruit.” In the first year of Hsien-t’ien [712] the Master announced to the assembly: “Although unworthy, I received the robe and the Dharma from Master Hungjen, and now I am preaching to you. The robe will not be handed down, for the root of your faith is deep, you are firm and without doubts, and you are fit for the one great causal event (the appearance of a Buddha in this world). Listen then to my verse: The mind-ground contains the various seeds, With the all-prevading rain each and every one sprouts. When one has suddenly awakened to the sentiency of the flower, The fruit of enlightenment matures of itself. 79  Unidentified. Paul W. Kroll - 978-90-04-38020-2 Downloaded from Brill.com11/15/2020 06:09:18AM via San Francisco State University

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After finishing his verse the Master said: “This Dharma is not dual; neither is the mind. This Tao is pure and has no form at all. Take care not to contemplate purity or to make the mind empty. The mind is from the outset pure; there is nothing you must grasp or throw away. Each one of you must exert himself. Leave now and go to wherever circumstances lead you.” For forty years the Master preached the Dharma for the benefit of living beings. On the sixth day of the seventh month of the same year [712] he ordered his disciples to go to the Kuo-en Temple and to erect there a pagoda, called Pao-en, and he had them hurry its construction. There was a monk from Szechuan, Fang-pien by name, who came to visit the Master. “I am good at modeling clay figures,” he said. Keeping a straight face, the Master replied: “Try making one then.” Fang-pien did not understand the Master’s intent and made a clay figure of the Master, about seven inches high, on which he expended all his ingenuity. Examining it, the Master said: “Your modeling nature is good, but your Buddha nature does not come out so well. But I’ll give you some clothing in payment.” The monk bowed in thanks and left. On the first day of the second month of the second year of Hsien-t’ien [= March 1, 713] the Master said to his disciples: “I wish to return to Hsin-chou. Get me a boat and some oars at once.” The assembly was struck with grief and they begged the Master to remain a while longer. The Master said: “All Buddhas who appear in this world reveal their Nirvāna. It is always true that those who come must go. There must always be a place to which my body will return.” The assembly said: “Master, you are going away from here; you will come back soon again?” The Master replied: “When leaves fall they return to the root; for when I return there is no date.”80 Someone asked: “To whom are you transmitting your Dharma eye?” The Master answered: “The possessor of Tao will get it and the one with nomind will penetrate it.” Again someone asked: “Will there be any difficulties later?” The Master replied: “Some five or six years after I die someone will come to get my head. Listen to my prediction: Atop the head offerings to parents, In the mouth food is sought. 80  Translation uncertain. The text reads: lai-shih wu-jih. The Yüan edition of the Platform Sutra substitutes k’ou (mouth) for jih (day) (t48, p. 361b): “When leaves return they have no mouth (speak no words)” or “When I come I will have no mouth.” Paul W. Kroll - 978-90-04-38020-2 Downloaded from Brill.com11/15/2020 06:09:18AM via San Francisco State University

1740

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When the trouble with Man occurs, Yang and Liu will be officials.81 The Master continued: “Seventy years after I die two Bodhisattvas will come from the East, one a layman, the other a monk. Simultaneously they will gain many converts and establish my teachings. They will restore and found temples and produce numerous heirs to my Dharma.” When he had finished his talk, he went to the Kuo-en Temple in Hsin-chou, and after taking a bath, seated himself in the lotus posture and passed away. A strange fragrance impressed itself on those who were there and a bright rainbow curved over the earth. This was on the third day of the eighth month of the same year [= August 28, 713]. At this time at both Shao-chou and Hsin-chou sacred pagodas were erected and none of the monks or laymen could decide [where the body was to be enshrined]. The prefects of each county burned incense together and offered an invocation: “Wherever the smoke from the incense leads will be the place to which the Master wishes to return.” The smoke from the incense burner rose and moved straight in the direction of Ts’ao-ch’i. On the thirteenth day of the eleventh month the Master’s body was enshrined in its pagoda. He was seventy-six years old. Wei Ch’ü, the prefect of Ts’ao-ch’i, wrote the text for his monument. His disciples, recalling the Master’s prediction that someone would take his head, put an iron band and a lacquered cloth about his neck to protect it. Inside the pagoda was placed the “robe of faith” handed down by Bodhidharma, the robe and bowl presented by Emperor Chung-tsung, the figure of the Master modeled by Fang-pien, and various Buddhist implements. The pagoda attendant was placed in charge of these. On the third day of the eighth month of K’ai-yüan 10 [= September 18, 722], in the middle of the night a sound like the dragging of iron chains was heard coming from the pagoda. The monks leaped up in surprise in time to see a man in mourning clothes running out from the pagoda. Later on they found that the Master’s neck had been injured. The attempt at robbery was reported to county and prefectural officials. The prefectural authorities ordered Yang K’an and the prefect to obtain a warrant and to arrest the culprit at once. Five 81  This verse predicts the events detailed at the end of this selection. A man in need of food was hired by a Korean monk to cut off the Sixth Patriarch’s head and to rake it to Korea so that it might be venerated there. The man was named Man and the officials concerned with the thief’s punishment were Yang and Liu.

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The Birth Of A Patriarch

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days later the thief was seized at Shih-chüeh village and was sent to Shaochou for examination. He stated that his name was Chang Ching-man, that he was a native of Liang hsien in Ju-chou, and that he had received twenty thousand cash from a Korean monk, Chin Ta-pei of the K’ai-yüan Temple in Hung-chou, to steal the Sixth Patriarch’s head and take it to Korea so that it might be venerated there. The magistrate Liu heard the case, but did not immediately pronounce sentence, first going himself to Ts’ao-ch’i. There he asked Ling-t’ao, one of the Master’s higher disciples, what sentence he should pass. Ling-t’ao replied: “If you follow the laws of the nation then he should be executed. But the compassion of Buddhism treats enemy and friend alike. After all, he was motivated by the desire to venerate [the head]. His crime should be forgiven.” The magistrate Liu responded in admiration: “For the first time I realize the breadth and greatness of the Buddhist teaching.” Then the criminal was set free. In the first year of Shang-yüan (760) the Emperor Su-tsung sent an envoy asking for the Master’s robe and bowl so that they might be brought to court for veneration. On the fifth day of the fifth month of the first year of Yung-t’ai [= May 29, 765] the Emperor Tai-tsung had a dream in which the Sixth Patriarch asked for [the return of] the robe and bowl. On the seventh day an imperial order was issued to the prefect Yang Chien: “I have had a dream in which the Ch’an Master Hui-heng requested that the robe which represents the transmission of the Dharma be returned to Ts’aoch’i. I have now ordered Liu Ch’ung-ching, the Grand General of Defense, to return it to you with due reverence. I regard it as a National Treasure. Let it be installed properly at the head temple, and be strictly guarded by special priests, who have been recipients of the main tenets of the teaching. Great care must be taken so that it is not lost.” Although in later years people did steal the robe, they did not get far with it, and it was always retrieved. This happened several times. Emperor Hsien-tsung conferred on the Master the posthumous title of “Ta-chien” and his pagoda was named Yüan-ho Ling-chao. In the beginning of the K’ai-pao period [968–975] of the Sung, when the imperial army subjugated the Liu family of Nan-hai, the defeated soldiers made a stand [at the temple], and the pagoda-mausoleum was completely destroyed by fire. But the Master’s body was protected by the monk in charge of the pagoda and suffered no injury whatsoever.

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Later an imperial order to repair the building was issued, and before it was finished it happened that Ta’i-tsung ascended the throne. He was much interested in Ch’an and contributed greatly to the splendor of the pagoda. It has been 292 years from the Master’s death in the second year of Hsient’ien [713] until now, the first year of Ching-te [1004]. Excluding the thirty-three heirs, among them Yin-tsung and others, who each propagated Ch’an somewhere, made their marks, and were true heirs [of the Sixth Patriarch], there were others who concealed their fame and all traces of themselves. They are listed, but no records are given; of them we list about ten men from the biographical records of other schools.82 These represent collateral branches.83 We have reviewed and discussed the biographical material relating to Huineng. But with all this information can a biography really be written? Can we select from this material what is most probable; can we determine which account is reliable, which represents the true story? Some of the elements of some of the biographies can be rejected outright, yet what we have seen does not represent the compilation of a biography. It is no more than the development of a legend, one part of the story of the gradual rise of Ch’an in the eighth century. And when we come to the Platform Sutra, the work which purports to convey Hui-neng’s life and describe his teachings, we find ourselves faced with the same insoluble problems.

82  The table of contents to chüan five lists Hui-neng and forty-three heirs. For nineteen some sort of information is provided; the others are given by name only. Of the remaining twenty-four men, then, fourteen can be considered “true heirs,” and the other ten should be assigned to “collateral branches.” 83   t 51, pp. 235b–37a.

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Metropolitan Chan

Imperial Patronage and the Chan Style John McRae

A “Chan Boom” in the Imperial Chinese Capitals

In the first half of the eighth century, the northern Chinese cities of Chang’an and Luoyang were the greatest urban centers in the world. Chang’an had a population of over a million, a number far larger than any city in the Middle East (let alone Europe) would reach for centuries. Originally a safe military headquarters “within the passes” of the mountainous northwest, Chang’an was laid out on an extremely grand scale and in a cross-hatched design of wide boulevards running north-south and east-west. The city walls formed a nearly square rectangle enclosing a neatly ordered set of government centers, market areas, and neighborhoods. With the imperial palace in the north of the city and major thoroughfares connecting to regional highways leading eastward to Korea and Japan and westward to Central Asia, Persia, India, and the Middle East, the emperor could face south towards both city and realm, even as the entire world seemed to face north in paying homage toward this ruler of “all under heaven.” The imperial state was expressed in grand and imposing material form, with massive office buildings and official temples, and it was operated by a bureaucratic organization of ministries, bureaus, and departments manned by officials who achieved their positions through different combinations of hereditary advantage and civil service examinations. The most elite of these bureaucrats were required to attend an imperial audience every morning, some of whom recorded poetic laments of the windy chill of lonely city streets in wintertime as they rode on horseback from their homes to the palace in the far north of the city. In addition to its majestic official identity as a political center, Chang’an was a cosmopolitan nucleus of trade, literature, culture, and religion. As the major Chinese trading node on the Silk Road, it received imports of rare treasures from India, Persia, and beyond, and its people enjoyed new musical styles, carnival entertainments, and art forms imported one after the other from the Source: “Metropolitan Chan,” in John R. McRae, Seeing through Zen: Encounter, Transfor­ma­ tion, and Genealogy in Chan Buddhism, Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004, 45–73. © University of California Press.

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“western regions.” Polo was a favorite game among men (and some women) of the Chinese upper classes, and some of the latest song styles from the “western regions” shocked the older generations as much as contemporary music does in the United States today. With local populations of traders and their descendants from Sogdiana, Khotan, Korea, and other exotic locations around China, Chang’an was an exciting and lively mix of cultures. In terms of knowledge of both the western regions and Buddhism, the example of the great pilgrim Xuanzang (600?–64), who had traveled through Central Asia to India in the mid-seventh century, was still reverberating throughout the Chinese realm. And, of course, there were dozens of magnificent Buddhist temples (and a smaller number of Daoist ones) throughout the city, with a large population of monks and nuns. The second capital at Luoyang was not nearly as large, nor was it laid out quite so neatly as Chang’an, but its location some 320 kilometers to the east was within the rich alluvial Yellow River plain and thus in the very cradle of Chinese civilization. Luoyang had been a Buddhist center from the second century onward—one of the earliest and most important in China—and its temples were numerous, venerable, and magnificent. In addition to its reputation as a center of culture, Chinese officials sometimes preferred that the emperor reside at Luoyang because it was easier to supply with grain than was Chang’an in the mountains to the west. For students of Chan, Luoyang is also known as the city just north of Mount Song, the central peak in the quinary configuration (i.e., having points in the center and four corners) of traditional Chinese sacred geography. Bodhidharma had been associated with Mount Song since at least 645, although it was only at the end of the seventh century that Chan monks are known to have taken up residence at the fabled Shaolin Temple there. At the beginning of the eighth century, in a pivotal event marking the public beginning of Chan as a school of Chinese Buddhism, the Chinese emperor invited a certain monk to the capital at Luoyang. This was not just any emperor, but the only woman to sit on the Chinese throne in her own name: Wu Zetian, usually referred to in English as Empress Wu (r. 690–705).1 Through an exceptional combination of native intelligence and political acumen, along with good luck and personal beauty, Empress Wu had been able to take over control of the Chinese state when her husband, Emperor Gaozong (r. 649–83), was debilitated by strokes beginning in 670, and then to rule in her own name from 690 onward. Although she is excoriated by orthodox Confucian historians, her efforts to justify her political position by identifying herself as a 1  Although the English word empress is gender-specific, in Chinese she was represented during her rule as a full “child of heaven.” Paul W. Kroll - 978-90-04-38020-2 Downloaded from Brill.com11/15/2020 06:09:18AM via San Francisco State University

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Buddhist ruler, and even as an incarnate Bodhisattva, are a fascinating subject for students of Chinese religions. For our present purposes, we may merely note that by the turn of the eighth century she was well established in her rule and had no need for further ideological artifice.2 And the Chan teacher invited to court by Empress Wu was no ordinary monk! He was Shenxiu (606?–706) from Jade Spring Temple in Jingzhou (Hubei and Hunan Provinces), the preeminent figure in the burgeoning Chan tradition. Two separate texts describe his welcome into Luoyang in 701 as follows: Empress Wu Zetian sent a palace messenger to escort Shenxiu to Luoyang. Monks and laypeople spread flowers in his path, and the banners and canopies [on the vehicles of the wealthy and prestigious] filled the streets. He entered the palace riding on an imperial palanquin decked with palm leaves. Empress Wu, following him, touched her forehead to the ground and knelt for a long time in a spirit of reverent dedication and chaste purity. When Shenxiu administered the precepts to the court ladies, all the four classes of Buddhists took refuge in him with the same feelings of veneration that they had for their own parents. From princes and nobles on down, everyone in the capital took refuge in him.3 [After his imperial invitation to Luoyang, Shenxiu] accompanied the imperial chariot on its comings and goings, proselytizing in the two capitals and personally becoming the Imperial Instructor. The Great Sage Empress Wu Zetian inquired of him: “Whose teaching is it that you transmit?” He answered, “I have inherited the East Mountain teaching of Qizhou [i.e., Huangmei, the location of Hongren’s monastery].” Empress Wu Zetian said, “In considering the cultivation of enlightenment, the East Mountain teaching is unexcelled.”4 2  On Empress Wǔ’s religious and political identity, see the two excellent volumes by Antonino Forte: Political Propaganda and Ideology in China at the End of the Seventh Century: Inquiry into the Nature, Authors, and Function of the Tunhuang Document S. 6502, Followed by an Annotated Translation; and Mingtang and Buddhist Utopias in the History of the Astronomical Clock: The Tower, Statue, and Armillary Sphere Constructed by Empress Wu. For the use of Daoist motifs in the support of her reign, see Stephen R. Bokenkamp, “Medieval Feminist Critique of the Chinese World Order: The Case of Wu Zhao.” (Be aware that this publication did not undergo the ordinary authorial review of proofs and is marred by typographical and editorial errors.) 3  From Annals of the Transmission of the Dharma Treasure (Chúan fǎbǎo jì 傅法寶紀) in McRae, Northern School, 51 and 266, with minor changes. 4  From Record of the Men and Teachings of the Laṅkāvatāra (Léngqié rénfǎ zhì 榜伽人法誌), as quoted in the Record of the Teachers and Disciples of the Laṅkāvatāra (Léngqié shīzī jì 榜伽師 資記) in McRae, Northern School, 8–9. Paul W. Kroll - 978-90-04-38020-2 Downloaded from Brill.com11/15/2020 06:09:18AM via San Francisco State University

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This was a spectacular demonstration of imperial reverence, which Empress Wu emphasized by having Shenxiu sit facing south with herself kneeling in front of him, facing north. Shenxiu’s epitaph, which was written by a prominent statesman and literatus of the day, defended this by saying that “he who transmits the Holy Truth does not face north; he with abundant virtue does not follow the protocol of a subordinate.”5 Shenxiu seems to have been a member of the Tang ruling family, but this treatment was exceptional nonetheless. In addition to Empress Wu’s sincere reverence, she may even have been making a conciliatory gesture toward those who would replace her in office after her death.6 The result is that Shenxiu is the first historical member of the Chan tradition whose specific ideas, rather than a retrospective or posthumous image, are known in any depth and detail. In spite of the use of imperial north/south symbolism to indicate Shenxiu’s exalted religious status, there is only a distant connection between this and how his teachings and following came to be referred to as the “Northern school.” (See the next section, “Shenhui’s Campaign against the ’Northern School,’” beginning on p. 1753.) Instead, here we see Shenxiu effectively producing his own history, in the sense of identifying himself in the present by selectively and/ or creatively describing his past, by labeling his approach to Buddhism as the “East Mountain teaching” of his teacher Hongren.7 At about the same time, Hongren’s students compiled the Treatise on the Essentials of Cultivating the Mind; a little afterward they compiled a suitable set of teachings attributed to Daoxin; and decades later other monks produced the Treatise on Believing in Mind and other documents celebrating Sengcan’s life. Thus the process of retrospective production of history continued forward through time, even as its focus shifted to successively earlier figures in the lineage. This was the religious environment in which we discover the very first expressions of the Chan lineage scheme. That is, the genealogical presentation of the Chan transmission was first recorded on paper in the early years of metropolitan Chan activity. The earliest recorded instance of this was in the epitaph

5  From the epitaph by Zhāng Yuè 張説 in McRae, Northern School, 52. 6  In 701 Empress Wǔ’s power was unquestioned, but her demise was only a matter of time. On Shénxiù as a member of the imperial family and a well-known defender of Buddhism, see McRae, Northern School, 46–50. Of course, Shénxiù was not the only Buddhist monk favored by Empress Wǔ (one other notable example is Fǎzàng 法藏, a specialist in the Flower Garland tradition). 7  I am using the phrase “production of history” in emulation of David William Cohen, The Combing of History, xiii–xxv, esp. xv–xvi.

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for a certain Faru, a student of Hongren’s who died in 689, and by the second decade of the eighth century the later followers of Hongren had produced two separate texts describing the transmission from Bodhidharma to Shenxiu. These two texts, which I do not discuss individually here, are known to contemporary scholarship as early “transmission of the lamp” histories after the title of the defining text in the genre written several centuries later, the Record of the Transmission of the Lamp [compiled in] the Jingde [period], or Jingde chuandeng lu.8 There are differences of content and emphasis between the two “Northern school” texts, but they both express essentially the same doctrine: that the central teaching of Buddhism was transmitted through a sequence of patriarchs reaching Shenxiu and his disciples. While one of the fundamental implications of the “transmission of the lamp” texts was the unchanging continuity from master to disciple in the Chan lineage, from a historical perspective it is clear that the transition from East Mountain to the two capitals was accompanied by a profound transformation in the nature of the Chan movement. As environments of rhetorical exchange and religious discourse, there was a radical difference between East Mountain and the two capitals, and Chan was transformed as its members actively sought to move from one setting to the other. Notes and partial transcripts of the masters’ teachings might have been made at the East Mountain monastic community in the provincial town of Huangmei, but it was only when Hongren’s successors moved into the environment of the two capitals, with its literate society and incomparably larger urban scale, that well-written texts were required for disseminating the teachings. No doubt the creative process of active remembering began in some fashion at East Mountain, but we have no direct evidence of this. Whatever rustic simplicity or sophisticated discourse might have governed life at Huangmei is now largely unrecoverable, since all our sources are retrospective creations of the literate cultural center. Even granting the complexity of our sources, though, it is clear that Shenxiu’s teachings were qualitatively different from those of Hongren as described in the Treatise on the Essentials of Cultivating the Mind. Shenxiu was fascinated with a style of radical reinterpretation of the Buddhist scriptures based on his own religious insight, which he referred to as the use of “skillful means” or the “verification of the Chan meaning.” This was actually the extensive 8  The two “Northern school” texts are the Annals of the Transmission of the Dharma Treasure, mentioned in n. 3 above, and the Record of the Teachers and Disciples of the Laṅkāvatāra, mentioned in n. 4 above. Actually, the latter text traces the beginnings of the Chán lineage to Gunabhadra rather than Bodhidharma (see p. 26), an aberration ignored by the later Chán tradition.

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use of a form of anagoge or metaphor, in which every pronouncement of the scriptures was subject to reinterpretation in terms of “contemplation of the mind.”9 In simple terms, what Shenxiu told his listeners was that the Buddha was not interested in mundane matters, but used each and every utterance to describe the practice of Buddhist meditation. Shenxiu thus advocated, in a fashion distantly reminiscent of the Buddha himself, that Buddhists should work to achieve buddhahood and the salvation of all living beings themselves right now. Thus we find in Shenxiu’s writing a number of parallels drawn so as to redefine conventional religious practices in terms of actual spiritual cultivation. The following are paraphrased summaries of the most instructive of these parallels: Temple repair: The Chinese transliteration for saṅgha-ārāma is defined as a “pure ground,” so that the eradication of the three poisons of greed, hatred, and ignorance is described as constituting the repair or “cultivation” of such a monastery. Casting and painting of images: The Buddha was not interested in the creation of mundane images, but was instructing the true practitioner to “make his body a forge, the Dharma its fire, and wisdom the craftsman.” The three groups of pure precepts and the six perfections become the mold for casting, within the practitioner’s own body, the Buddha-nature of Suchness. Burning of incense: The incense referred to here is not some worldly fragrance but rather that of the true, unconditioned Dharma, which “perfumes” the tainted and evil karma of ignorance and causes it to disappear. 9  The Chinese terms used here are fāngbiàn 方便, from Sanskrit upāya; zhèng chán’yì 證襌義, a Chinese concoction (see T 50.724c12 for this term in reference to Shenxiu); guānxīn 觀心; and kànxīn 看心. Luis O. Gómez, in “Purifying Gold: The Metaphor of Effort and Intuition in Buddhist Thought and Practice,” points out that the exegetic strategies of Shénxiù’s Guānxīn lùn 觀心論 (Treatise on the contemplation of mind) are dissimilar from those of the Northern school’s Wǔ fāngbiàn (151–52, n. 106); specification of the precise differences remains an important task. He also observes that the metaphoric expressions found in the Guānxīn lùn should not be described as “extended metaphor”—presumably because they represent an extensive use of metaphor but not necessarily extended (i.e., complex, multidimensional) metaphor. However, he misapprehends my earlier suggestion that the strategy of “contemplative analysis” (which he correctly suggests rendering as “contemplative interpretation”) is characteristic of the Northern school, taking it to imply that it was the exclusive property of that school, which is expressly contrary to the passage he cites from my “The Ox-Head School of Chinese Ch’an Buddhism: From Early Ch’an to the Golden Age,” 231–32.

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Offering of flowers: The Buddha is said never to have advocated the injury of live flowers, but referred in the scriptures to the “flowers of merit” imbued with the essence of Suchness. Such flowers are permanent and never wilt. Circumambulation of stūpas: The body is equated with the stūpa, and circumambulation is defined as the ceaseless circulation of wisdom throughout the body and mind. Holding of vegetarian feasts: Through the selective use of Chinese homographs, the phrase “to hold vegetarian feasts” is interpreted as the ability to make the body and mind equally regulated and unconfused. Obeisance: Through the manipulation of transitive and intransitive equivalents of the Chinese characters involved, obeisance is defined as the suppression of errors.10 Shenxiu also introduces a short scriptural passage extolling the virtues of bathing and then reinterprets the endeavor as “burning the fire of wisdom to heat the water of the pure precepts and bathe the Dharma-nature of Suchness within one’s body.” The following is a summary of Shenxiu’s seven “dharmas of the bath”: Clean water: Just as clean water washes away the dusts of this world, so do the pure precepts clean away the defilements of ignorance. Fire: The fire that heats the bath water is actually wisdom, with which one contemplates or examines one’s internal and external being. Soap powder: The soap powder used to clean away dirt is actually the ability of discrimination by which one can ferret out the sources of evil within oneself. Toothpicks: The “sticks of willow” used to eradicate mouth odor are nothing less than the Truth by which one puts an end to false speech. Pure ashes: The ashes or powdered incense rubbed on the body after bathing are endeavor (vīrya), by which one puts an end to doubt-laden ratiocination. Oil: Rather than softening one’s skin, the oil referred to here is meant to soften dispositional stiffness, or bad habits.

10  These are from Shenxiu’s Guānxīn lùn, as cited in McRae, Northern School, 199–200. The metaphor introduced under “casting and painting of images” reminds one of Daoist interior alchemy.

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Underwear: The clothing worn in the bath is actually the sense of shame that inhibits evil actions.11 In other words, Shenxiu interpreted every passage of every scripture he considered in terms of its instruction concerning Buddhist spiritual cultivation, and he advocated a manner of living in which even the most prosaic of one’s activities became—in every feature and detail—an act of religious practice. There is a definite connection between this style of interpretation and the later Chan emphasis on having one’s practice extend to every facet of daily life. We will return to this provocative implication later (see the discussion in chapter 4). The point to be emphasized here is the significance of Shenxiu’s innovations for the eventual crystallization of Chan as an independent tradition of Chinese Buddhism. There was, in short, a remarkable “Chan boom” in early eighth-century Chang’an and Luoyang, in which Shenxiu’s Chan teaching became wildly popular in the greatest cities on earth, among the world’s most sophisticated and cosmopolitan society. As one courtier wrote, Students of Buddhism from both capitals and the faithful from all areas of China all come to the Five-Gated [Entrance to the Imperial City to hear his teaching]. They come from a thousand li away without any hesitation! The mendicants with their robes and begging bowls crowd into newly built halls like schools of jumping fish; their huts cover the hillside like lines of geese. Gathering like clouds and free as the dew, they go to Shenxiu empty-handed and return fulfilled.12 Shenxiu’s message was breathtakingly simple, since he in effect told his followers to simply practice contemplation of the mind now, working to be bodhisattvas here and now, in this very lifetime, in every moment of their lives. There are echoes of this fundamental attitude not only in later Chan, but also in the early-ninth-century “enlightenment in this body” doctrines of the Japanese Tendai and Shingon school figures Saichō (767–822) and Kūkai (774–835), whose teachings were clearly inspired by the Chan innovation.13 11  Ibid., 200–201. 12  From a memorial to the throne, cited in McRae, Northern School, 53. 13  For information on these two figures and their teachings of “enlightenment in this body,” see Paul Groner, “Shortening the Path: Early Tendai Interpretations of the Realization of Buddhahood with This Very Body” (Sokushin Jōbutsu). Also see Jacqueline Stone, Original Enlightenment and the Transformation of Medieval Japanese Buddhism, 31–33, and Ryūichi

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Although his message may have been simple in a certain sense, Shenxiu obviously conveyed it with a commanding personal charisma and a uniquely appealing rhetorical style. His activities in the two capitals at the beginning of the eighth century spawned an explosion of Chan religious creativity. Not only did he have some seventy ordained disciples whose names are important enough to be known, but his major students became imperial instructors themselves. They and their students and friends wrote a number of important texts outlining their doctrines and practices, including not only the treatises attributed to Daoxin and Hongren and the “transmission of the lamp” histories mentioned above, but also a variety of documents that have come down to us through the finds at Dunhuang. Taken together, these texts give the impression of a collective experimental effort, an exploration of just how a still-evolving Chan message might best be conveyed to others. Some of these formulations are genuinely inventive, while others are oddly mechanical in their application of Shenxiu’s new style of metaphor, and the diversity of formulations implies that not everyone participating in this new movement understood the practice of Buddhism precisely as he had. But this was an entirely natural course of events. One of the most intriguing features of this material is that some of these texts describe actual practices of meditation. Although there is tremendous variety, the following passages from the text known as the Five Skillful Means and circulated by the “Northern school” provide a good introduction: To view the mind as pure is called “to purify the mind-ground.” Do not constrict the body and mind and then unfold the body and mind—view afar in expansive release. View with universal “sameness.” Exhaust space with your viewing. The preceptor asks: What do you see [lit., “What thing do you see”]? The disciple(s) answer: I do not see a single thing. Preceptor: Viewing purity, view minutely. Use the eye of the pure mind to view afar without limit, without restriction. View without obstruction. The preceptor asks: What do you see? Answer: I do not see a single thing.

Abé, The Weaving of Mantra: Kūkai and the Construction of Esoteric Buddhist Discourse, esp. 300–302. A translation of Kūkai’s 空海 text on the subject may be found in Yoshito S. Hakeda, Kūkai: Major Works Translated, 225–34. None of these sources, however, provides significant discussion of Kūkai’s potential indebtedness to Chinese Chán.

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View afar to the front, not residing in the myriad sensory realms, holding the body upright and just illuminating, making the true essence of reality distinct and clear. View afar to the rear, not residing in the myriad sensory realms, holding the body upright and just illuminating, making the true essence of reality distinct and clear. View afar to both sides … View afar facing upwards … View afar facing downwards … View the ten directions all at once … View energetically during unrest … View minutely during calm … View identically whether walking or standing still … View identically whether sitting or lying down … Question: When viewing, what things do you view? Answer: Viewing viewing, no thing is viewed. Question: Who views? Answer: The enlightened mind views. Penetratingly viewing the realms of the ten directions, in purity there is not a single thing. Constantly viewing and being in accord with the locus of nonbeing, this is to be equivalent to a buddha. Viewing with expansive openness, one views without fixation. Peaceful and vast without limit, its untaintedness is the path of bodhi. The mind serene and enlightenment distinct, the body’s serenity is the bodhi tree. The four tempters have no place of entry, so one’s great enlightenment is perfect and complete, transcending perceptual subject and object.14 The preceding does not need much elaboration. It clearly asks the students to place emphasis on the enlightened mind at the center of their beings, and it instructs them to train their minds so as to penetrate the entire cosmos and 14  The generic title governing this material is Wǔ fāngbiàn 五方便. See McRae, Northern School, 172–74. Phrases in italics represent ritualized, almost choral, responses. In the last paragraph, it is not entirely clear how “locus of nonbeing” (wúchǔ 無處) is to be understood. The term is used in slightly later Chán texts (i.e., from the late eighth and early ninth centuries) in a manner that invites further analysis; at this point the meaning might simply be “absence of place.” The “four tempters” are of course the four Māras; see Nakamura Hajime 中村元, Bukkyōgo daijiten 仏教語大辞典 (Encyclopedia of Buddhist terms), 532a.

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all individual activities. The spatial quality of the instructions is distinctive, but the mental attitudes to be nurtured through such practices resemble those of the later Chan tradition: a sense of release, the recognition of the universal sameness of all experience, recognition of the fundamental emptiness of all things, a quality of profound tranquillity, and above all the innate ability of the mind to illuminate and understand all things. The basic practical orientation indicated here is similar to that of the Hongren treatise in advocating an approach to spiritual cultivation that is energetic and vigorous but entirely without tension or the discriminatory fixation on the goal. Although the best way to appreciate the meditation exercises just described is in terms of Shenxiu’s understanding of the “perfect teaching,” to which we will return shortly, it is also easy to appreciate how these instructions to “view afar” could be criticized by someone less disposed to meditation practice himself. It is to just such a figure that we now turn.

Shenhui’s Campaign against the “Northern School”

In 730, 731, and 732, a monk named Shenhui staged public “debates” at a town in Shandong, far to the northeast of Luoyang, in which he attacked two students of Shenxiu’s for making false claims about their lineage and for teaching an inferior style of practice. In 745 Shenhui took up residence in Luoyang, where he continued his campaign. The written account of the 732 event (actually edited after 745) describes the question posed to Shenhui by his interlocutor, an otherwise little-known monk named Chongyuan, and Shenhui’s response: Dharma Master Chongyuan asked Shenhui, “The two worthies, Chan Master Puji of Mount Song and Chan Master Xiangmo Zang of the Eastern Peak (i.e., Mount Tai), teach people to sit in meditation and ‘freeze the mind to enter concentration, fix the mind to view purity, activate the mind to illuminate the external, and concentrate the mind to realize the internal.’ They declare that this is the teaching. Why do you today preach Chan without teaching people to sit [in meditation] and without teaching people to ‘freeze the mind to enter concentration, fix the mind to view purity, activate the mind to illuminate the external, and concentrate the mind to realize the internal’? What is ‘sitting in meditation’?” His Reverence Shenhui answered, “To teach people to sit [in meditation this way] … is to obstruct bodhi (i.e., enlightenment). When I say ‘sit’ now, [I mean that] ‘sitting’ is for thoughts not to be activated. When I say ‘meditation’ now, [I mean that] ‘meditation’ is to see the fundamental

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nature. Therefore, I do not teach people to have their bodies sit and their minds abide in entrance into concentration. If it were correct to declare such a teaching, then Vimalakīrti would not have scolded Śāripūtra for sitting in meditation.” Dharma Master Chongyuan asked, “Why is it impermissible for Chan Master Puji to use the label ‘Southern school’?” His Reverence answered, “Because when Reverend Shenxiu was alive, all those who study the Path in China referred to these two great masters as ‘[Hui]-neng of the South’ and ‘[Shen]-xiu of the North’—everyone knew this. It is because of these titles that we have the two schools of North and South. Chan Master Puji is actually a student of [Shenxiu of] Jade Springs [Temple]; he actually never went to Shaozhou (Huineng’s place of residence) but now falsely mouths off about his being the Southern school. Therefore, this is impermissible.”15 This was a shocking presentation. Using the format of a public debate, Shenhui staged a dramatic and sharply worded attack on the “Northern school,” which was a label he invented himself and applied to Shenxiu and his disciples. The name “Northern school” immediately stuck, even though it was clearly a pejorative and polemical distortion—we can infer from the above (there is other corroborating evidence as well) that certain members of this loose confraternity of practitioners actually used the title “Southern school” to describe their own teachings. Shenhui was actively engaged in reformulating the history of Chan, and it is important to recognize that he borrowed substantially from the so-called “Northern school” even as he criticized it so severely. For example, Shenhui set up his own lineage hall in imitation of Puji, even as he worked to establish the transmission from Bodhidharma to Huineng (and then implicitly to Shenhui himself) as the sole lineal succession of Chan.16 The “Northern school” had originally generated the basic configuration of the Chan genealogical model, but only with Shenhui was its unilineal quality highlighted so clearly. Shenhui’s ideas of meditation practice also inherited perspectives shown in the Hongren treatise and Shenxiu’s writings, but he was of course far more explicit about denying the value of mental manipulation. 15  This is from Shénhuì’s Definition of the Truth; see McRae, Zen Evangelist. 16  John Jorgensen has pointed out how Shénhuì’s argument against the “Northern school” worked according to the patterns of Chinese ancestral worship, but he does not notice that Shénhuì’s lineage hall is modeled on one established by Pǔjì 普寂. See Jorgensen’s “The ’Imperial’ Lineage of Ch’an Buddhism: The Role of Confucian Ritual and Ancestor Worship in Ch’an’s Search for Legitimation in the Mid-T’ang Dynasty.”

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Shenhui was a unique religious persona within the Chan tradition, in that his vocation was that of an evangelist. He did not fit the standard pattern of the meditation teacher who patiently guided dedicated practitioners as they struggled to work through the various problems and stages of spiritual cultivation. Instead, his life’s work was performed on the ordination platform, where he served as inspirational orator, recruiter for the saṅgha, and fund-raiser for both church and state.17 Shenhui’s mission was to inspire believers to generate a sincere aspiration to achieve perfect enlightenment on behalf of all living beings (this is the moment of bodhicitta, the primary criterion of being a bodhisattva). He was a master at public preaching, able to draw large crowds with his histrionics and inspiring style. Here is an example of how Shenhui worked to motivate his listeners to attain the first moment of realization (bodhicitta) even as they listened to him preach: Friends, you have all been able to come here so that you can all generate the unsurpassable bodhicitta. It is extremely difficult to encounter the Buddhas, Bodhisattvas, and true spiritual compatriots. Today you are going to hear something you’ve never heard before. In the past you never encountered it, but today you have. The Nirvāṇa Sūtra says, “The Buddha asked Kāśyapa, ‘Would it be difficult to throw a mustard seed down from Tuṣita Heaven and hit the point of a needle on the earth below?’ Bodhisattva Kāśyapa replied, ‘It would be extremely difficult, World-honored One.’ The Buddha told Kāśyapa, ‘This is not difficult. For the correct cause and the correct condition to meet—this is what is difficult!’” What are the correct cause and the correct condition? Friends, your generation of the unsurpassable bodhicitta constitutes the correct cause. For the Buddhas, Bodhisattvas, and true spiritual compatriots to cast this unsurpassable bodhicitta into your minds such that you achieve the ultimate emancipation constitutes the correct condition. For the two to meet is excellent…. You must each and every one of you generate bodhicitta!… Since you have already come to this ordination platform to study the perfection of wisdom, I want each and every one of you to generate the unsurpassable bodhicitta both mentally and orally and to become

17  See McRae, “Shenhui’s Vocation on the Ordination Platform and Our Visualization of Medieval Chinese Ch’an Buddhism.”

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enlightened to the cardinal meaning of the middle way in this very place!18 One modern Chinese commentator makes much of Shenhui’s creation of “a new kind of Ch’an that was no ch’an at all,” by which he means a new approach to Buddhism that omitted the practice of meditation.19 But the reason the practice of meditation is so strikingly absent from Shenhui’s writings is not that meditation was no longer to be included in the Chan training regimen, but because Shenhui’s personal religious vocation was that of an evangelist, recruiter, and fund-raiser, rather than that of a spiritual mentor to dedicated trainees. This is not a reflection of Chan monastic behavior in general, but of Shenhui’s distinctive religious identity. We have no evidence that Shenhui ever concerned himself with the ongoing endeavor of spiritual cultivation, and his lineage was not notably long-lasting. Although the names of a few of his immediate students are known, none of them was historically significant. Even his most famous successors in subsequent generations seem not to have been descended from him, but rather from another monk by the same name. (This is a good example of the second rule of Zen studies: “Lineage assertions are as wrong as they are strong.”) The reasons for Shenhui’s very substantial impact on the evolution of Chan must be sought elsewhere.

The Oxhead School: Resolving the Factionalist Crisis

Shenhui’s attack on Shenxiu’s students created a crisis in early Chan, by creating a sharp dichotomy between two newly defined factions, the Northern and Southern schools. This crisis was resolved by the appearance of a third faction, the Oxhead school, and the composition of the Platform Sūtra. Shenhui’s waspish criticism of other contemporary monks by name was unprecedented, and it stigmatized him even as many of his positions were accepted. His caricature of “Northern school” teachings as gradualist may not have been accepted by everyone, but since the “Northern school” was an artificial creation of Shenhui’s imagination, very little energy was expended in defending it. Shenhui’s simple 18  This is excerpted from the beginning of Shénhuì’s Platform Sermon, forthcoming in McRae, Zen Evangelist. 19  This commentator is Hu Shih [Hú Shì] 胡適 (1891–1962), whose interpretation of Chán is discussed in John R. McRae, “Religion as Revolution in Chinese Historiography: Hu Shih (1891–1962) on Shen-hui (684–758).”

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value structure, in which sudden enlightenment (especially the first moment of inspiration) was good and gradual enlightenment (or the progressive development toward complete understanding) was bad, was not accepted, but his combative bombast did make everyone else shy away from formulations that might be attacked as either dualistic or gradualist. Hence subsequent Chan texts observed an unspoken “rule of rhetorical purity,” avoiding any direct discussion of specific meditation practices—since any method was by definition gradualistic in some fashion. In addition, in the records of the latter decades of the eighth century we find a number of attempts to erase the sharp distinction between north and south, gradual and sudden.20 Below are a few examples. First, here is “Eulogy on the Two Patriarchs Huineng and Shenxiu,” by the poet-monk Jiaoran: The minds of these two men were like the moon and sun. With no clouds in the four directions, they appear in space. The Three Vehicles share the same path; the myriad teachings are one. The “division into Northern and Southern schools” is an error of speech. Jiaoran has eulogies to Bodhidharma, Zhiyi (founder of the Tiantai school), the “Northern school” monks Lao’an (d. 708) and Puji, Huineng and Shenxiu, the legendary Baozhi (418?–514?), Shenxiu (individually), and Xuansu (688–752) of the Oxhead school—but none that is dedicated to Huineng individually. Next, the famous poet Liu Zongyuan’s (773–819) epitaph for an Oxhead school monk contains the following: The greatest aberration in the diminution of the Buddhist teaching is the term “Chan”: Grasping, it defiles things; misleading, it becomes separate from the truth. This separation from the truth and increase of deception is greater than the [entire realm of] space of both present and past. Such stupid errors and deluded self-indulgence only debase oneself, misrepresent Chan [here meaning dhyāna?], and do injury to the Buddhist teaching. Those who make this error are characterized by stupidity and moral 20  These distinctions have been introduced earlier, beginning on pp. 32 and 37.

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dissolution…. [Master Ruhai (the subject of the epitaph)] has said…. [After the transmission reached] Shenxiu and Huineng, north and south reviled each other like fighting tigers, shoulder-to-shoulder, and the Way became hidden. Finally, here is a statement by an important Oxhead school figure: A lay supporter asked: “Are you a follower of the Southern school or the Northern school?” He answered: “I do not belong to either the Southern school or the Northern school. The mind is my school.”21 So what was the impact of this “Oxhead school”? It arose in the latter half of the eighth century, among monks renowned for their literary creativity who felt a deep connection with the Chan tradition. As a lineage, it defined itself separately from either the Northern or Southern schools, but at least some of its members were enchanted by the image of Huineng, the figure promoted by Shenhui as sixth patriarch. The earliest version of the Platform Sūtra, which dates from around 780, makes effective use of Oxhead school ideas in producing a narrative framework for the understanding of Chan (see p. 1766 below). The Oxhead school did not merely soften the edges of contention between the Northern and Southern schools, it created new rhetorical devices by which to overcome the agonizing division that Shenhui had generated. The philosophy that underlay these efforts is demonstrated in the following passage, which is from the Treatise on the Transcendence of Cognition ( Jueguan lun). This imaginative text is presented as a dialogue between an idealized teacher called Professor Enlightenment and his student, Conditionality. The result is the most meaningful sort of fiction, in which is depicted the spiritual dialogue between master and student that leads to the latter’s awakening: Professor Enlightenment was silent and said nothing. Conditionality then rose suddenly and asked Professor Enlightenment: “What is the mind? What is it to pacify the mind?” [The master] answered: “You should not posit a mind, nor should you attempt to pacify it—this is called ‘pacified.’ ”

21  These citations are all from McRae, “Ox-Head School,” 201–3. In the last quotation, “school” renders zōng 宗 , which originally meant “male primogenitor” and hence came to mean “patriarchal principle” (this is Yanagida’s rendering) and eventually “school.”

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Question: “If there is no mind, how can one cultivate enlightenment (dao)?”22 Answer: “Enlightenment is not a thought of the mind, so how could it occur in the mind?” Question: “If it is not thought of by the mind, how should it be thought of?” Answer: “If there are thoughts then there is mind, and for there to be mind is contrary to enlightenment. If there is no thought then there is no mind, and for there to be no mind is true enlightenment.” … Question: “What ‘things’ are there in no-mind?” Answer: “No-mind is without ‘things.’ The absence of things is the Naturally True. The Naturally True is the Great Enlightenment (dadao).” … Question: “What should I do?” Answer: “You should do nothing.” Question: “I understand this teaching now even less than before.” Answer: “There truly is no understanding of the Dharma. Do not seek to understand it.” … Question: “Who teaches these words?” Answer: “It is as I have been asked.” Question: “What does it mean to say that it is as you have been asked?” Answer: “If you contemplate [your own] questions, the answers will be understood [thereby] as well.” At this Conditionality was silent, and he thought everything through once again. Professor Enlightenment asked: “Why do you not say anything?” Conditionality answered: “I do not perceive even the most minute bit of anything that can be explained.” At this point Professor Enlightenment said to Conditionality: “You would appear to have now perceived the True Principle.” Conditionality asked: “Why [do you say] ‘would appear to have perceived’ and not that I ‘correctly perceived’ [the True Principle]?” Enlightenment answered: “What you have now perceived is the nonexistence of all dharmas. This is like the non-Buddhists who study how to make themselves invisible, but cannot destroy their shadow and footprints.” Conditionality asked: “How can one destroy both form and shadow?” Enlightenment answered: “Being fundamentally without mind and its sensory realms, you must not willfully generate the perception of impermanence.”

22  One of the most common translation errors of modern times is the failure to recognize that dào 道, lit. “path,” was also used in Chinese Buddhist texts to render bodhi, dharma, yāna, gati, and the implied abstract features meaning “-hood” or “-ship” (as in “buddhahood,” “arhatship”), and so forth. The most common example is the explanation of the name for martial arts practice facilities, dōjō, as “place of the way,” when in fact the term dàochăng 道場 is a Chinese translation of bodhimanda, the Buddha’s “place of enlightenment” under the bodhi tree.

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Question: “If one becomes [a Tathāgata] without transformation and in one’s own body, how could it be called difficult?” Answer: “Willfully activating the mind is easy; extinguishing the mind is difficult. It is easy to affirm the body, but difficult to negate it. It is easy to act, but difficult to be without action. Therefore, understand that the mysterious achievement is difficult to attain, it is difficult to gain union with the Wondrous Principle. Motionless is the True, which the three [lesser vehicles] only rarely attain.”[?] At this Conditionality gave a long sigh, his voice filling the ten directions. Suddenly, soundlessly, he experienced a great expansive enlightenment. The mysterious brilliance of his pure wisdom [revealed] no doubt in its counterillumination. For the first time he realized the extreme difficulty of spiritual training and that he had been uselessly beset with illusory worries. He then sighed aloud: “Excellent! Just as you have taught without teaching, so have I heard without hearing …”23 This text is significant for at least two reasons. First, and most important, it depicts the interaction between teacher and student as the latter begins the quest, attains an intermediate realization that is momentarily mistaken for the goal, and then achieves final enlightenment. This is only one of a number of texts from the latter half of the eighth century that are devoted to explicitly fictional depictions—that is, dramatic scriptings—of this process. It was not yet conceivable that written texts should include the words of actual, historical students. This observation is relevant to the emergence of written transcriptions of Chan “encounter dialogue,” and we return to this point in the next chapter. Second, we should pay attention to the threefold structure of this passage. In contrast to Shenhui’s simple, dualistic value system of gradual vs. sudden, here there is a threefold pattern of beginning questions, intermediate hesitation, and final achievement. A close examination of Oxhead school writings suggests that their teachings were frequently written using a threefold logical 23  See McRae, “Ox-Head School,” 214–15. The term “counter-illumination” in the last paragraph refers to the enlightened mind’s ability to reflect back upon and thus illuminate itself, after the fashion of the setting sun that shines back from across the horizon. Incidentally, the explanation of the “pacification of the mind” at the beginning of this passage might be the source for the story about Bodhidharma’s pacification of Huìkĕ’s mind. As already noted (see p. 26), this story first appears in written texts only in 952. The Bodhidharma/Huìkĕ dialog is also a fictional (but thus important because of, not in spite of, it’s fictionality) scripting of how Chán training and enlightenment might occur. Paul W. Kroll - 978-90-04-38020-2 Downloaded from Brill.com11/15/2020 06:09:18AM via San Francisco State University

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format, which resembles Zhiyi’s scheme of the three truths of absolute, relative, and middle.24 It is also structurally similar to Hegel’s thesis-antithesissynthesis pattern, but in this case the second element achieves its impact by the application of the fundamental Mahāyāna concept of śūnyatā, or emptiness. Indeed, the same tripartite structure is apparent in the thought of at least one important Indian Mādhyamika philosopher.25 That is, an expression of Buddhism is made in the first element, the terms of this expression are erased in the second element, and the understanding of Buddhism is thereby elevated to a new level of profundity in the third element. The significance of this pattern will only become clear when we examine the greatest masterpiece of early Chinese Chan Buddhism, the Platform Sūtra. The Platform Sūtra as the Climax Text of Early Chan The Platform Sūtra appeared in about 780, over a century after the events it describes were supposed to have taken place. Many scholars have struggled to identify the contents of some “original” or “core” version of the text that might date back to Huineng himself, but the utter failure of these attempts has only confirmed the late provenance of the text as we have it. Barring some miraculous discovery, we must consider the text as we first discover it, in its Dunhuang version. But we really should be satisfied with this, for this earliest version of the text is a brilliant consummation of early Chan, a masterpiece that created a new understanding of the past even as it pointed the way to a new style of Chan practice. The heart of the Platform Sūtra is the following story.26 Since he was approaching the end of his years, the Fifth Patriarch Hongren instructed all his disciples to compose a “mind-verse” demonstrating their

24  See Paul Swanson, Foundations of T’ien-t’ai Philosophy: The Flowering of the Two Truths Theory in Chinese Buddhism, 150–56. 25  The technical term for this style of philosophical elevation is aufhebung (abolition, abrogation, annulment) in German, or zhĭyáng 止揚. The Indian philosopher referred to here is Bhāvaviveka, who suggests that one first assumes distinctions drawn from ordinary life, then denies those same distinctions, then reappropriates them in a transformed way. See Malcolm David Eckel, To See the Buddha: A Philosopher’s Quest for the Meaning of Emptiness, 29–42. 26  I have published a simplified version of the following material as “The Story of Early Ch’an.” The passages from the Platform Sūtra here and just below are drawn from the translation by Philip Yampolsky, The Platform Sutra of the Sixth Patriarch, 129–32, with changes. Paul W. Kroll - 978-90-04-38020-2 Downloaded from Brill.com11/15/2020 06:09:18AM via San Francisco State University

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levels of enlightenment. If one of these verses manifested a true understanding of Buddhism, its author would receive the Fifth Patriarch’s robe and the status of Sixth Patriarch. All but one of the disciples simply ignored Hongren’s instructions, deferring instead to the man they felt would be the next leader of the Chan community: Shenxiu. Shenxiu himself was perturbed by his teacher’s request, though, and thought to himself, The others won’t present mind-verses because I am their teacher. If I don’t offer a mind-verse, how can the Fifth Patriarch estimate the degree of understanding within my mind? If I offer my mind to the Fifth Patriarch with the intention of gaining the Dharma, it is justifiable; however, if I am seeking the patriarchship, then it cannot be justified. That would be like a common man usurping the saintly position. But if I don’t offer my mind then I cannot learn the Dharma. In the end Shenxiu did compose a verse, but he was so uncertain about its worth and the propriety of seeking the patriarchship that he inscribed it anonymously on a wall in one of the monastery’s corridors, doing so late at night so that no one would see him. Shenxiu’s verse read: The body is the bodhi tree. The mind is like a bright mirror’s stand. At all times we must strive to polish it and must not let dust collect. When Hongren saw this verse on the corridor wall the next morning, he canceled plans to have illustrations from the Laṅkāvatāra Sūtra painted there. He praised Shenxiu’s verse highly and ordered his students to recite it so as to avoid unfavorable future rebirths. In private, though, he pointed out to Shenxiu that it did not display true understanding, and he counseled his senior disciple to write another verse to gain the Dharma. In the end, Shenxiu was unable to do so. In the meantime, an uneducated layman from the far south of China named Huineng was at work threshing rice, completely unaware of Hongren’s instructions about the future succession. When one day an acolyte passed by the threshing room reciting Shenxiu’s verse, Huineng realized immediately that its author did not understand the “cardinal meaning” of Buddhism. The boy explained the matter to Huineng, who asked to be shown the corridor wall on which the verse was inscribed. Since he was illiterate, Huineng requested that someone else record his poetic statement.

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Actually, the earliest version of the Platform Sūtra contains two versions of Huineng’s verse: Bodhi originally has no tree. The mirror also has no stand. The Buddha-nature is  always clear and pure. Where is there room for dust?

The mind is the bodhi tree. The body is the bright mirror’s stand. The bright mirror is  originally clear and pure. Where could there be any dust?

Clearly, the editor could not decide which was better! In later versions, this indelicacy is cleared away, and a famous third line is added: Bodhi originally has no tree. The bright mirror also has no stand. Fundamentally there is not a single thing. Where could dust arise? According to the basic Dunhuang account, Hongren denigrated Huineng’s verse in public, but late that night he privately taught the layman the ultimate teaching of the Diamond Sūtra. Huineng was immediately awakened to its profound meaning, received the transmission of the sudden teaching and the Fifth Patriarch’s robe, and left the monastery in secrecy that very night. This is one of the most treasured legends of the Chan tradition. I have introduced only the bare essentials of the story, but even with this minimal detail we can see a number of ways in which the Platform Sūtra was producing a new historical account of the evolution of Chan, even as it implied a new religious vision. First, in some of its details the Platform Sūtra account is clearly written as historical allegory. Note, for example, the shift from Laṅkāvatāra Sūtra to Diamond Sūtra implied in the account (i.e., in the cancellation of the painting commission and Hongren’s teaching to Huineng), which parallels the two texts’ changes in popularity over the course of the eighth century. The position of the Laṅkāvatāra within Chan was always ambiguous, since the text was more revered in the abstract than actually studied. However, it was generally associated with “Northern school” teachers. Shenhui was one of the first monks of his day, but by no means the only one, to favor the Diamond, which was becoming more widely popular throughout the Chinese tradition at the time. Hence, in the Platform Sūtra the two texts roughly symbolize the Northern and Southern schools. Also, Shenxiu’s prominence within Hongren’s community and Huineng’s inferior status may be taken as indications of the relative

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Figure 3

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“Huineng’s” verse from the Platform Sūtra on the back window of a taxicab, Tainan, Taiwan. Photograph by the author, 1996.

strengths of the two factions prior to the composition of the Platform Sūtra. In a biography written at about the same time as this text, and in later versions of the Platform Sūtra itself, Huineng is depicted as remaining in hiding for sixteen years after receiving the transmission, a more graphic representation of the early weakness of the movement associated with his memory. Second, the absence of any reference to Shenhui is significant. Shenhui’s own texts never mention the “mind-verses” nor anything like the Platform Sūtra story, which is an important indication that the verses were composed after his death. At the very least, the verses could not have been written prior to Shenhui’s vigorous campaign on behalf of Huineng as sixth patriarch, nor Shenhui’s vigorous espousal of the teaching of sudden enlightenment. One of the most important features of the Platform Sūtra, in other words, is that it incorporates Shenhui’s innovations while writing him out of the story. As mentioned above, even as Shenhui transformed the understanding of the evolution of Chan, the factionalist cast of his campaign stigmatized Shenhui himself. But how should we understand the verses themselves? The traditional interpretation, since the time of the great systematic Chan and Huayan philosopher Zongmi (780–841), has been that Shenxiu’s verse represents gradualism and Huineng’s subitism (the position that enlightenment occurs in a single transformation that is both total and instantaneous). This simplistic explanation cannot be accepted. (Zongmi artificially claimed succession from Shenhui, but

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given the manifest difference between Shenhui’s teachings and the Platform Sūtra, Zongmi’s interpretation should be recognized as a tactical distortion of the original.) First, the verse attributed to Shenxiu does not in fact refer to gradual or progressive endeavor, but to a constant practice of cleaning the mirror. Hence, Zongmi’s traditional interpretation is conceptually incorrect. Second, the verse attributed to Huineng could not stand alone (nor could any of the variants attributed to him), since it could not be understood without reference to “Shenxiu’s” verse. Since the two verses constitute an indivisible pair—they indicate a single polarity, not two separate teachings—it is inappropriate to use either verse as a key to the religious teachings of the two historical individuals Shenxiu and Huineng. And how are we to understand the equations made in “Shenxiu’s” verse? Thinking of the body as the bodhi tree is easy enough, since both sides of the equation are comfortably physical; just as the bodhi tree was the location of Śākyamuni’s enlightenment, so must the physical body be the site of enlightenment for each human being. But how can the mind be like a mirror’s stand? Many English translations of “Shenxiu’s” verse omit reference to the stand and say simply that “the mind is like a mirror,” but this interpretation is simply erroneous.27 The solution lies in the following passage from a treatise by Shenxiu: Further, lamps of eternal brightness (i.e., votive lamps) are none other than the truly enlightened mind. When one’s wisdom is bright and distinct, it is likened to a lamp. For this reason, all those who seek emancipation always consider the body as the lamp’s stand, the mind as the lamp’s dish, and faith as the lamp’s wick. The augmentation of moral discipline is taken as the addition of oil. For wisdom to be bright and penetrating is likened to the lamp’s flame (or brightness). If one constantly burns such a lamp of truly suchlike true enlightenment, its illumination will destroy all the darkness of ignorance and stupidity.28 There is no specific evidence that the historical Shenxiu ever wrote anything like the verse attributed to him in the Platform Sūtra, or even that he made any metaphoric identification between mind and mirror’s stand. However, it would 27  One of the problems is that the term kyōdai 鏡台 “mirror-stand,” corresponding to the Chinese jìngtái 鏡臺, occurs as a bound form meaning simply “mirror” in modern Japanese. 28  See McRae, Northern School, 235. The English “suchlike” renders the word rú 如, as in the Chinese translation of Tathāgata, rúlái 如來, when used as a modifier.

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have been entirely in character for him to have done so. If we were to speculate how he might have generated such a metaphor, we would presumably conclude that he would have used the logic introduced in this passage. That is, in his use of “skillful means” to interpret all the various elements of Buddhist scriptures as demonstrations of the “constant practice” of the “contemplation of the mind,” Shenxiu might have posited the body as the overall setting for enlightenment (i.e., the bodhi tree), the sensory and intellectual activity of the mind as the proximate support for enlightenment (i.e., the mirror’s stand), and the pure or enlightened mind itself as the illuminative surface of the mirror—and the act of rubbing the mirror clean of dust as a standard maintenance operation similar to maintenance of the Buddhist precepts or monastic regulations.29 Based on the most comprehensive reading of the texts pertaining to Shenxiu, it is apparent that his basic message was that of the constant and perfect teaching, the endless personal manifestation of the bodhisattva ideal. Even at a glance we can see that it makes more sense for the anonymous authors of the Platform Sūtra to depict Shenxiu’s teachings as remarkably profound rather than as an elementary form of gradualism. Since the goal was to show the superiority of Huineng’s teachings, the comparison should not be made with something recognizably inferior—as gradualism was considered at the time, especially in this post-Shenhui moment—but rather with something already recognized as superior in itself. If I were to propose a new theory of mathematics, for example, I would not compare it to elementary school arithmetic but to something far more sophisticated. Huineng’s verse(s) exhibit no explicit subitism, but only the reversal or denial of the terms of Shenxiu’s verse. The two sets of verses do not, then, represent the alternatives of gradual and sudden, and they certainly do not represent the distinctive doctrines of two opposing lineages. If we compare this to the structure of the Oxhead school’s depiction of the interchange between Professor Enlightenment and the student Conditionality, the parallel is clear: the Platform Sūtra uses the same threefold structure found in Oxheadschool thought. The constant teaching is first posited as the highest possible expression of the Buddhist teaching in formal terms, after which Huineng’s verse(s) apply the rhetoric of emptiness to undercut the substantiality of the terms of that formulation. However, the basic meaning of the first proposition 29  If this reconstruction of Shénxiù’s usage is correct (even approximately), it implies that the Platform Sūtra verse’s presentation has garbled his ideas somewhat. Although this would not be surprising, it makes any integrated interpretation of the verses tenuous. In spite of the speculative interpretation I have given in the text, the bodhi tree and the mirror may be two entirely separate metaphors only awkwardly conjoined in the verse.

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still remains, rather like a shadow whose sharp outlines have been removed by the impact of the second proposition. The third and final proposition thus includes both the assumption of the first and the erasure of the second, now shorn of its oversharp outline. In the Platform Sūtra this third proposition is implicit in the balance of the text, which contains the expression of the ultimate teaching of Buddhism in ways that do not contravene the “rule of rhetorical purity.” Although somewhat disjointed, the balance of Huineng’s sermon in the Platform Sūtra is a wonderful mélange of early Chan teachings, a virtual repository of the entire tradition up to the second half of the eighth century. At the heart of the sermon is the same understanding of the Buddha-nature that we have seen in texts attributed to Bodhidharma and Hongren, including the idea that the fundamental Buddha-nature is only made invisible to ordinary humans by their illusions. There are clear borrowings from Shenhui’s criticisms of “Northern school” meditation practices, as well as his doctrine of the identity of concentration and wisdom. The Huineng of this text is conscious of Shenhui’s proscriptions against dualistic formulations, and he warns repeatedly that the difference between sudden and gradual lies only in the aptitude of the practitioner. For all this, the sermon as a whole establishes a posture toward the actual practice of meditation that differs from that of Shenhui, and the entire mood of the Platform Sūtra regarding the gradual/sudden distinction is not Shenhui’s straightforward polemic of inferior vs. superior, but rather a nuanced attempt to describe a notoriously refractory subject, that is, the basic attitude that should be adopted toward Buddhist spiritual cultivation. In addition, the text clearly admits laypeople to full participation in this process, something that the monastic recruiter and fund-raiser Shenhui never did. (For him laypeople were potential converts to the monastic life or, in some cases, prominent scholar-officials who lent prestige to his activities.) The Platform Sūtra inherits the style of reinterpreting conventional Buddhist pronouncements as meditation instructions that had been originally developed by Shenxiu and that was maintained to some extent by Shenhui and to an even greater degree by the Oxhead school.30 The sermon Huineng is depicted as delivering in the Platform Sūtra has been subjected to various interpretations, and it is worthy of far more extended attention than I can give it here. For the present, we need only notice the open quality of the text. That is, even though this famous scripture serves to cap a certain line of development within the Chan tradition, it does not close off further doctrinal evolution. Indeed, the text itself was frequently updated in the 30  See n. 9 above.

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ensuing centuries, implying that in some sense the devotees of Chinese Chan took some time to become satisfied with the Platform Sūtra’s presentation of the teaching. (In the future, scholars may be able to explore the accretions to and modifications of this text as something of an index to the evolution of Chan.) However, there is also a sense in which the subsequent evolution of Chan passed the Platform Sūtra by; that is, the text helped set the stage for the emergence of encounter dialogue as a mode of spiritual cultivation, but it represents more the grand culmination of one era than a scripture for all seasons. The Platform Sūtra has enjoyed great attention in the twentieth century because of the Dunhuang manuscript finds, and it is now extremely popular in Chan and Zen communities around the world. We need to remember, though, that it was not nearly so widely used during the Song dynasty in China or during the Kamakura period in Japan.31 But there is still more to say about the opening Platform Sūtra anecdote itself. The reader might wonder, for example, whether there is any possibility that the events described might have actually happened. Here we can be definitive: there is no such possibility whatsoever, and the account must be accepted as a brilliant and religiously meaningful bit of fiction. How is it possible to be so certain? First of all, Shenxiu studied with Hongren for a few years at the very beginning of the latter’s teaching career, so he was nowhere in sight when the events in question are supposed to have occurred. Second, the very notion of selecting an individual successor to serve as “sixth patriarch” would have been inconceivable in the latter years of Hongren’s life, since the concept of a Chan “monosuccession”—that there was one and only one orthodox succession of patriarchs—appeared only later, in the teachings of Shenhui.32 Third, if the matter had been known to Shenhui, who was a master storyteller dedicated to promoting Huineng’s identity as sixth patriarch, he certainly would have included it in his writings. We have good evidence to show that in the late 730s Shenhui was ignorant of most of the details of Huineng’s life. It is probable, but by no means certain, that Shenhui only thought to contribute to the embellishment of Huineng’s life quite late in his own career.33 31  On the importance of the Platform Sūtra in the spiritual career of the Korean Sŏn master Chinul, though, see Robert E. Buswell Jr., The Korean Approach to Zen: The Collected Works of Chinul, 23 and 34. 32  It is in Shénhuì’s writings that the Chán patriarchs are first listed with ordinal numbers indicating their generation. 33  Shénhuì certainly would have recounted the anecdote involving the mind-verses if he had known of it. The other arguments stated here are presented at greater length in McRae, Zen Evangelist.

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There are also indications that the Platform Sūtra verses—both those attributed to Shenxiu and to Huineng—were generated utilizing “Northern school” rather than “Southern school” writings. We have already seen references to the “path of bodhi” and the body’s serenity as the bodhi tree in “Northern school” writings above (see p. 1752), as well as allusions to not seeing “a single thing.” In this context it is significant that a Dunhuang manuscript containing numerous metaphors in the manner of the “Northern school” contains the line “within suchness there originally is really not a single thing.” The Chinese for this line is similar to the famous later third line of Shenxiu’s Platform Sūtra verse, implying that the scripture was modified on the basis of ideas originally transmitted in a “Northern school” style or context. Since “Northern school” refers to a sizeable movement associated with literate court society and Buddhism, while the “Southern school” of Shenhui and Huineng was a minor voice from the provinces to the east and far south, it should not be too surprising that the invention of a tradition associated with the latter used resources derived from the former.34

Huineng as Illiterate Sage and the Evolution of Chan

Finally, let us briefly examine the legendary identity of Huineng himself, since it is through this image rather than through doctrines per se that the primary impact of the Platform Sūtra was felt. The historical Huineng seems to have been a member in good standing of that loose confraternity of teachers we have referred to above as the Northern school. That is, his name is mentioned in one of the early eighth-century “transmission of the lamp” texts as one of Hongren’s ten major disciples— although one of only regional significance, since he lived in Caoqi in the far south of China. Huineng’s name appears one other time in a Dunhuang text dedicated to the memory of Hongren, where, along with other figures, he is briefly quoted in a manner that says nothing about any particular ideas that might have been associated with the historical Huineng. We are told elsewhere that after Huineng’s death his residence was converted into a temple, and if this were true, his family must have had a certain degree of local prominence. It is striking, even stunning, how little Shenhui knows about the person who is supposed to be his own master, and it seems that Shenhui may have actually gained rather little more from Huineng than the certification of his own 34  The phrasing used here invokes that of Hobsbawm and Ranger, The Invention of Tradition, 199.

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enlightenment. (Here, of course, we can draw a comparison with Huike and Bodhidharma.) It is probably fair to think of the historical Huineng as a reasonably conventional Chinese monk, whose teachings differed only slightly if at all from those of other members of the Northern school. In contrast to the image just described, the legendary Huineng depicted in the Platform Sūtra is an illiterate layman from the far south, whose family had been reduced to such poverty that he had been making his living gathering and selling firewood. Although humble of origin, this Huineng is blessed with the highest of all Chinese moral qualities: he is a filial son taking care of his widowed mother. This image of the humble, unassuming paragon is clearly developed from the hagiography previously associated with Hongren, who was supposed to have sat in meditation by day and minded the cattle at night. In all these qualities, Huineng is the very antithesis of the highly cultured and socially advantaged monks who dominated the Chinese Buddhist saṅgha at the time. Shenxiu was in fact one of the prime examples of this type of individual— well educated in both Buddhist and secular literature, from a highly ranked family and perhaps even related to the imperial house, and thus used to the world of social and economic privilege. In this sense the contrast between the historical Shenxiu and the legendary Huineng could not be greater.35 But the image of Huineng is only apparently iconoclastic, only superficially populist. In terms of the developing Chan genealogical theory, the goal of his depiction in the Platform Sūtra is to show that anyone—even someone so clearly lacking in all the usual qualifications of an elite Chinese Buddhist monk—could be appointed as sixth patriarch as long as he fulfilled the only qualification that really mattered. That is, the particulars were negotiable as long as it could be argued that he was innately enlightened. The story is designed to say that the Chan school would go to any lengths to nominate anyone who fulfilled this one crucial prerequisite, and that as an institution it was unconcerned about anything else whatsoever. On the surface, this seems to make the patriarchate accessible to anyone. To be sure, there is a universalist aspect to the Platform Sūtra account, in its implication that anyone can become enlightened regardless of educational or 35  The image of Huineng as a “seeming dullard and diligent sweeper” is mentioned in Michel Strickmann, “Saintly Fools and Chinese Masters (Holy Fools),” 52. Although Strickmann’s subject matter here is drawn largely from much later sources, the topos of a student performing manual labor, specifically “sweeping and sprinkling” the floor, for his master goes back at least to Gé Hóng’s 葛洪 Shénxiān zhuàn 神仙傅. In addition to Gé Hóng’s comments about himself, see the example of Chén Ānshì 陳安世, which plays on this imagery, in Campany, To Live As Long as Heaven and Earth, 14 and 137–39.

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social background. But in terms of the Chan lineage itself, there was a paradoxical implication. Just as the Chan school would go to any length to find the right appointee, even if he lacked all the “right” social qualities, conversely, one implication of the Platform Sūtra story is that each person the Chan school later selected as a lineal successor to its enlightened masters was similarly qualified as an enlightened individual, even though it might seem that considerations of social status, family connection, and other worldly qualities played a role in the selection. Thus a brilliant iconoclastic form can actually serve to maintain a socially conservative orthodoxy.36 There is no explicit evidence that this paradox was on the minds of the compilers of the Platform Sūtra, of course, nor even that it was obvious to the readers of the text. The logic involved here becomes important when we consider the paradoxical role of iconoclasm in Song-dynasty Chan discourse, where it is used within a highly ritualized formal setting. We also need to look at how the imagery of the illiterate sage found in the Platform Sūtra resonated through the encounter dialogue anecdotes of the so-called “classical” stage of Chinese Chan. Before proceeding to these issues, however, we should briefly consider certain issues of historical context.

Three Other Sets of Events

Although this book focuses on Chan, we must remember that this one school of Chinese Buddhism did not develop in a vacuum. There are at least three major events, or rather sets of events, that occurred in the eighth century that significantly altered the evolution of Chan. The first set of events was the appearance of esoteric Buddhism on the Chinese scene. Although writers who focus myopically on the Chan tradition imply that the Southern school supplanted the Northern school solely through the superiority of its sudden teaching, the attention of the imperial court and metropolitan literati had already been diverted from Chan long before the distinction between the Northern and Southern schools was posited. Śubhākarasiṃha (637–735) arrived in Chang’an in 716 and immediately began to excite the Chinese with a new interpretation of Buddhism that promised both rapid spiritual attainment and unparalleled worldly power. On his heels came Vajrabodhi (671–741), who arrived in Guangzhou (Canton) in 720, and Amoghavajra (705–74), who became a disciple of Vajrabodhi’s at age fifteen 36  This interpretation is worked out in greater detail in McRae, “The Legend of Hui-neng and the Mandate of Heaven.” On the ideological uses of the Huìnéng legend, compare Bruce Lincoln’s definition of myth as “ideology in narrative form” in Theorizing Myth, 147.

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in China, traveled to India after his master’s death, and returned to China in 746. Along with the native exegete Yixing (683–727), a former Northern school monk and protoscientist who collaborated in the translation and teaching work of Śubhākarasiṃha and Vajrabodhi, these men dominated the Buddhist scene in Chang’an and Luoyang throughout most of the eighth century. Here was a religious teaching that allowed one to ally oneself with the greatest spiritual powers of the universe, both for one’s own spiritual advancement and for maximum ritual efficacy in worldly affairs, including healing illness, bringing rain or ending floods, and even causing victory on the battlefield. Using a unique combination of profound doctrine, visualization technique, and impressive ritual theater, esoteric Buddhism overwhelmed the Chinese—and indeed East Asian—religious consciousness. As soon as esoteric Buddhist teachers appeared on the scene, competition for patronage between them and native Chan masters became inevitable. We have a lengthy description of an encounter between Śubhākarasiṃha and Jingxian (660–723), one of Shenxiu’s students. What is most interesting about this encounter for our purposes is that the foreign master explicitly criticizes the Chan style of meditation practice, insisting that by “single-mindedly maintaining non-thought (wunian) as the ultimate, the [longer you] search, the more unattainable [is your goal].”37 Although there are certain similarities between Chan and esoteric Buddhist practice (the importance of the relationship between Chan master and student resembles that between tantric guru and esoteric practitioner, for example), Chan had nothing to match the highly theatrical style and magnificent promise of esoteric ritual. One or two Chan masters were prominent at the imperial court in the last decades of the eighth century and beyond, but none of them attracted the faddish aura of excitement that had surrounded Shenxiu and other Northern school figures at the beginning of the century.38 The second set of events is a sequence of civil and political disasters that led to the collapse of the Tang dynasty itself, implying the destruction of what had been a supremely influential model for Buddhism throughout East Asia. The process began in 755–63, with a major rebellion instigated by a military governor in the far north, a man of Sogdian extraction named An Lushan (Roxanna 37  See McRae, Northern School, 344, n. 340, based on T 18.945a22–24. 38  Unfortunately, the Chinese esoteric Buddhist tradition is not well studied—I would say, in fact, that it is the least well-studied tradition of East Asian religion. The most important recent exception is Charles D. Orzech’s Politics and Transcendent Wisdom: The Scripture for Humane Kings in the Creation of Chinese Buddhism. For a critique of Orzech’s work, see my review in Journal of Chinese Religions.

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in Sogdian). In most ignominious fashion, the emperor was forced to flee Chang’an, made to abdicate in favor of his son, and compelled to watch the execution of his favored concubine. (She and her brother, a notoriously corrupt official, were blamed by the emperor’s military escort for allowing the catastrophe to occur.) After An Lushan’s death the rebellion was carried forward by others, and it took some eight years for the Tang imperial government to reestablish itself. In the process, though, China was changed forever: regional governors were effectively given autonomy in many of the outlying regions; the imperial house remained in charge of only the central provinces. Changes in taxation and military conscription that began at this time signaled a major transformation of Chinese society as a whole. The second event in this series was of course the great persecution of Buddhism by the Chinese government in the Huichang period, beginning in 845. Monastic assets were seized, monks and nuns were laicized, and great restrictions were placed on the activities of the church in general. Most introductions to Chinese Buddhism consider this persecution to have dealt the religion a crippling blow, but its effects were only temporary. The problem was that the Buddhist establishment was hardly given time to recover before the next disaster struck: this was the Huang Chao rebellion of 875–84, which devastated the provinces of northern China, effectively destroying the foundation of aristocratic family domination there, and eliminating the combined wealth of the social class from which Buddhism received its support. The Tang state limped along for another couple of decades, but in 907 it finally collapsed entirely. The next half-century or so witnessed a succession of regimes that controlled different regions of northern and southern China. The Chinese polity would be reconstituted in 960 with the founding of the Song dynasty, but by then the world had changed forever. The third set of events is the effective end of the translation of Buddhist scriptures from India and Central Asia. This was not an event that occurred instantaneously, and several different factors contributed to this final result. First, from some time in Amoghavajra’s career, or perhaps only shortly thereafter, the only new texts being translated were esoteric ritual manuals. There were a handful of translators active throughout the ninth century, but nothing they produced became important for larger doctrinal or devotional reasons.39 Second, from 810 on, the Tang imperial court divested itself of all involvement in Buddhist translation activities, ending a centuries-old tradition of central government sponsorship. The result was that from about this year until 980, no 39  See Ono Genmyō 小野玄妙, Bussho kaisetsu daijiten 仏書解説大辞典, separate volume, 170a–74a.

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Buddhist scriptures were formally entered into the canon.40 Third, in 1004—by coincidence the year in which the Transmission of the Lamp was presented to the Song court—Moslem forces conquered Khotan.41 Buddhism had long been in decline in its heartland areas of India and Central Asia, and now the transmission of texts across the Silk Road was impossible. There was a flurry of activity in the last two decades of the tenth century, but even though the Song government established a central translation bureau, it soon became moribund.42 The problem, simply enough, was that there were just no more new texts to work on. The influx of Buddhist ideas from the northwest ceased, and Chinese society became increasingly focused on mercantile activity among the coastal provinces, especially in the southeast. Although Buddhist scriptural translation had generally been carried out in just a few imperial centers, and only occasionally in provincial cities and alpine retreats, still it would be difficult to overestimate the impact of this change. For centuries the Chinese Buddhist community as a whole had thrived on the constant appearance of new texts, new ideas, and new modes of religious praxis—and now all that simply stopped. It is not enough to point out that Chan’s characteristic contrast with the “teachings”—as presented in phrases such as “a separate transmission outside the teachings” and the “unity of Chan and the teachings”—took advantage of this new weakness in its perceived counterpart. Along with the decline in Buddhist scholastic writing in general, there was a vacuum of leadership, a hollowness to the former rhetoric of monastic learning. It is significant that the slogans ranking Chan as an equivalent of the Buddhist doctrinal tradition became widely used just as the tradition of translation and doctrinal study was being profoundly undercut. The emergence of Chan as the single most dominant Buddhist tradition in China came about, in effect, because it fit so well in the post-Tang world. Certain features of Chan—from the classical style of encounter dialogue to its characteristic institutional patterns—worked effectively within the China that was emerging out of the collapse of the Tang. The remaining chapters in this 40  Lewis Lancaster made this observation, in personal communications of May 1993 and July 2001. He noticed the phenomenon while preparing, in collaboration with Sung-bae Park, The Korean Buddhist Canon: A Descriptive Catalogue. On the change in Táng policy, see Ono, Bussho kaisetsu daijiten, separate volume, 180b. 41  For the date of the conquest of Khotan, see Prods Oktor Skjærvø, “Khotan, An Early Center of Buddhism in Chinese Turkestan,” 290, as well as the sources mentioned at 290, n.4 42  On the Sòng-dynasty translation bureau, see Huáng Qĭjiāng 黄啓江 [Huang Chichiang], Bĕi-Sòng di yìjīng rùnwénguān yŭ Fójiào 北宋的譯經潤文官與佛教.

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book are designed to explain what these features are and how this “fit” developed. In chapter 4 we explore the most characteristic element of the new Chan discourse, the distinctive style of spontaneous encounter dialogue between masters and disciples. In chapter 5 we examine how the new posture of Chan religious identity allowed the school’s members to dominate the Chinese monastic institution from the tenth century onward. Finally, in chapter 6 we see how Chan was presented to its members and the public at the very pinnacle of its success in China, during the “climax paradigm” configuration of Chan that emerged during the Song dynasty.

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Time after Time: Taoist Apocalyptic History and the Founding of the T’ang Dynasty Stephen R. Bokenkamp Revolutionary chiliasm thrives best … where history is imagined as having an inherent purpose which is preordained to be realized on earth in a single, final consummation. Norman CoHn, Europe’s Inner Demons

∵ In* 1970, Anna Seidel published what was to become perhaps her most influential work, “The Image of the Perfect Ruler in Early Taoist Messianism: Lao-tzu and Li Hung.”1 She boldly demonstrated the continuing importance of Taoist eschatology throughout the Six Dynasties, and thus added much to what we knew at that time concerning the origins of religious Taoism in the millenarian peasant rebellions at the end of Han. In that initial article, which was followed by several others on related issues, Seidel chose to focus on one vital aspect of the larger complex, the image of Lao-tzu and, later, his avatar Li Hung as that of “politico-religious saviors” who people expected to descend and rule over the elect in an era of Great Peace. Throughout her study, Seidel emphasized that “we are dealing less with the evolution of an ideology than with the varying expressions of the same belief in different strata of society: in dissenting peasant movements, among literate Taoist priests in organized sects, and at the imperial court.”2 She supported this assertion with impressive documentation, drawn from Tun-huang texts, canonical scriptures, and standard histories, showing that a number of emperors—including Li Hsiung of the Ch’eng-Han, Liu Yü of the Liu-Sung, Source: “Time after Time: Taoist Apocalyptic History and the Founding of the T’ang Dynasty,” Asia Major 3rd ser. 7.1 (1994): 59–88. * A portion of the research for this article was supported by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities, an independent federal agency. 1  History of Religions 9 (1969–70), pp. 216–47. 2  Seidel, “Image of the Perfect Ruler,” p. 245. © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���9 | doi:��.��63/9789004380202_054

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T’o-pa Tao of the Northern Wei, and perhaps even Li Yüan of the T’ang—all saw themselves as conforming to the prophecies of Lord Li messianism. This finding directly contradicted the received image of Taoism as a religion of the illiterate masses and a partially literate priesthood, a “hodge-podge of coarsegrained superstitions.”3 Seidel had successfully implicated Taoist ideology in that most serious of traditional Chinese intellectual projects—the establishment of an ideal imperial order. In subsequent years, and even today, the idea has not gone down easily. For example, Howard Wechsler, after reviewing the evidence forwarded by Seidel and others, subsumed the influence of Taoist ideology in the founding of the T’ang under the general rubric of portents. By Wechsler’s account, Taoist ideology was just another “useful vehicle of exploitation” to be employed by skeptical emperors.4 By this view, Taoism had gained in importance, but only incrementally, from something the literati would not touch to something they might condescend to use as a privileged route to the hearts and minds of the masses. Although I myself may have been at least partially responsible for this way of dodging Seidel’s thesis,5 nevertheless, in the present paper I hope to recast my hypothesis. The problem, as Wechsler and I came to define it, concerns the insoluble question of what Li Yüan, the founder of the T’ang, actually believed. We are dealing with a religion, so questions of belief are naturally foregrounded.6 Yet we need to recognize that no amount of textual evidence will ever indisputably prove what any historical personage might have believed at any given moment in time. All of the statements that Wechsler cites to prove the skepticism of Li Yüan might equally be taken as the feigned reluctance to accept 3  This characterization of Taoism is by Édouard Chavannes, quoted in Max Kaltenmark, Laotzu and Taoism, Roger Greaves, trans. (Stanford: Stanford U.P., 1969), p. 107. 4  See chap. 3, “The Management and Manipulation of Portents,” Howard J. Wechsler, Offerings of Jade and Silk: Ritual and Symbol in the Legitimation of the T’ang Dynasty (New Haven: Yale U.P., 1985), pp. 55–77; the quoted phrase is on p. 60. 5  My 1980 paper “Taoist Millenarianism and the Founding of the T’ang,” presented to the Conference on the Nature of State and Society in Medieval China, Stanford, California, seems to have informed Wechsler’s thinking on the subject. He was present at the conference where I presented the paper and kindly cited it in his discussion of these events. At the time, both Robert Somers, who was discussant for my presentation, and David Johnson took issue with my “reductionist” assertion that Li Yüan had somehow “manipulated” the Taoist portents presented in support of his mandate. I have had ample opportunity, over the last fourteen years, to reexamine the opinions I expressed on that occasion. I am grateful to Somers and to Johnson for their thoughtful criticisms. My only regret is that Howard Wechsler, another fine scholar taken from us in an untimely way, is not around to debate the issue once again. 6  Seidel herself speaks of “varying expressions of the same belief ” (cited n. 2, above). Paul W. Kroll - 978-90-04-38020-2 Downloaded from Brill.com11/15/2020 06:09:18AM via San Francisco State University

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favorable portents traditionally considered appropriate to a dynastic founder. Skepticism is always possible, both on the part of emperors and of historians. The probing of individual belief, I now want to argue, is just not a promising subject for historical inquiry. More to the point, it matters little whether or not Li Yüan believed in the portents presented to him, since Taoist millenarian ideology is not reducible to the individual portents it offered as proofs. It is best seen not as a series of discrete historical events, but as a coherent complex of themes and images that express in different ways a politico-religious concern central to Taoism itself—the establishment of Great Peace 太平. Whatever Li Yüan’s personal faith might have been, he came to the throne at a time when concepts of kingship had been profoundly changed by Taoism. In particular, millenarian expectations were high and he could not but fashion an image reflective of these expectations. In this paper I reexamine certain aspects of Taoist apocalyptic thought—its origins and its relation to other ideologies of state formation—in yet another effort to fashion a suitable footnote to Seidel’s 1970 article. Seidel stressed in her article the image of the messiah. Here I widen the focus somewhat and examine Taoist notions of both history and the dynastic cycle in an attempt to isolate some of the enduring ideological constituents that contributed to the remarkable persistence of apocalyptic thought throughout the Six Dynasties period. Subsequently I isolate specific images of impending apocalypse and of the sage-lord of the new age. These were images that troubled the Sui monarchs and provided a new opportunity for the founder of the T’ang.

History and Its Ends

The words of Norman Cohn, scholar of Judaic and Christian millennialism, cited at the beginning of this paper serve to remind us that chiliastic visions are closely connected to a precise view of history, and that insofar as China did not share this view of history the word “millenarian” cannot properly apply. It is well known that China held to a cyclical view of history. No matter how long the cycle, it was thought to end only in the beginning of a new cycle of time. My use of the terms “millennium” and “apocalypse” should be taken in this sense.7 They refer to points on a circle rather than to final events on a time-line. 7  The term “millennial” derives from references to the 1 ,000-year period of earthly rule of Jesus Christ in Christian eschatology. In the sense in which I apply the term, one already adapted by Seidel, the “millennium” is the era of “Great Peace,” or perfect rule, following the

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But we cannot dispose of the question of history so easily, for Taoism did not invent its eschatological vision, but rather inherited it from classical Confucianism. Already in the pre-Han Lü-shih ch’un-ch’iu we find a passage that might fit in any Taoist text of the Six Dynasties: Whenever a Thearchical king is about to arise, Heaven invariably first manifests auspicious [signs] to the people below. At the time of the Yellow Thearch, Heaven first made to appear large earthworms and large mole-crickets. The Yellow Thearch said: “The earth-pneumas are ascendant.” Since the earth-pneumas were ascendant, he venerated yellow as his color and modeled his affairs on the [phase] earth. Coming to the time of Yü, Heaven first manifested plants and trees which did not wither in autumn and winter. Yü said: “The wood-pneumas are ascendant”… This is one of the earliest expressions of five-phases thought as applied to the political doctrine of the heavenly mandate 天命. The view of human history presented here is decidedly cyclical and by implication apocalyptic, following the orderly progression of the Five Phases in the “mutual conquest” order. What makes the passage “apocalyptic” in the Chinese sense is the prediction with which it closes. After revealing that king Wen of the Chou had risen in resonance with the fire phase, the passage continues, ominously: That which replaces fire must undoubtedly be water. Heaven will first manifest the ascendancy of water-pneumas and, due to the ascendancy of water-pneumas, [the new ruler should] revere black as his color and, in his affairs, model himself on the [phase] water. If water-pneumas reach

inauguration of a new world-era. To designate such an era, Taoist texts regularly employ the term chieh 劫, borrowed from early-Buddhist translations of the Sanskrit term kalpa. The word “apocalypse” derives from Greek apokalypsis (“unveiling”). Traditionally, the secrets “unveiled” in apocalyptic writings dealt both with the heavens and with the fate of the world, and, as Norman Cohn has pointed out, the two sorts of secret are intimately connected. See Cohn, Cosmos, Chaos and the World to Come: The Ancient Roots of Apocalyptic Faith, (New Haven: Yale U.P., 1993), pp. 163–93. Here, I use the term in the sense proposed by Jan Nattier, “a world view that anticipates the radical overturning of the present religio-political order as a result of action by forces acting on a cosmic (i.e., transhuman) level”; Jan Nattier, “The Meanings of the Maitreya Myth: A Typological Analysis,” in Alan Sponberg and Helen Hardacre, eds., Maitreya, The Future Buddha (Cambridge: Cambridge U.P., 1988), p. 43, n. 44.

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their apex and he does not know the [ fated] numbers and preparations, it will shift on to the [phase] earth.8 There is no mention here of the catastrophic warfare, drought, and flood that would attend the end of each dispensation. There did not have to be. The very mention that water-pneumas might “reach their apex” already implies that each age was marked by a waxing and a waning familiar to historical accounts of “good first” and “bad last” dynasts. Further, philosophers of the lateWarring States period generally tended to proclaim that they were living in the depraved final days, sometimes strangely characterized as “near antiquity” 近古 or “lower antiquity” 下古, as opposed to the preceding ages of “higher antiquity” and “middle antiquity.”9 During the Han dynasty, this tendency to mark three major cycles in the turnings of time found its fullest expression in the Triple Dispensation calendar 三統曆 (more properly known as the Grand Inception calendar 太初曆) of Liu Hsin 劉歆 (d. 23 ad).10 Liu Hsin sought, in Needham’s words, “to reconcile 8  Lü-shih ch’un-ch’iu 呂氏春秋 (sect. “Ying-t’ung” 應通) (Chu-tzu chi-ch’eng edn.) 13, pp. 126–27. This monitory advice, associated with Tsou Yen, was heeded by several rulers, most notably Ying Cheng 贏政, who took the phase water as his model and styled himself the “Inaugural Thearch of the Ch’in.” 9  The origins of the tendency to divide history into the three components “highest antiquity,” “middle antiquity,” and “lower antiquity” can be traced at least as early as Mengtzu 2B/7, which states the first two and merely implies the last. The strange-sounding “near antiquity,” referring to the Shang and the Chou, appears as the third term of the triad in Han-fei-tzu 韓非子 (Chu-tzu chi-ch’eng edn.) 49, p. 339. For the term san-ku 三古 in Taoism, see Max Kaltenmark, “The Ideology of the T’ai-p’ing ching,” Holmes Welch and Anna Seidel, eds., Facets of Taoism: Essays in Chinese Religion (New Haven: Yale U.P., 1979), pp. 22–23, and Anna Seidel, “Le sūtra merveilleux du Ling-pao Suprême, traitant de Lao-tseu qui convertit les barbes (le manuscrit th s. 2081): Contribution à l’étude du Bouddho-taoïsme des Six Dynasties,” in M. Soymié, ed., Contributions aux études de Touen-houang, Publications de l’École française d’Extrême-Orient 135 (Paris: ÉFEO, 1984) 3, pp. 319–20. Taoists were not alone in adopting this compelling three-tier model of history. Jan Nattier has recently presented evidence that the tripartite system of East Asian Buddhist scripture—cheng-fa 正法 (“True Dharma”; Sk. saddharma), hsiang-fa 像法 (“Semblance Dharma”; Skt. saddharma-pratirūpaka), and mo-fa 末法 (“End of the Dharma”)—was developed in China. (See Jan Nattier, Once Upon a Future Time: Studies in a Buddhist Prophecy of Decline (Berkeley: Asian Humanities Press, 1991), esp. pp. 65–118.) 10  I here follow Nathan Sivin’s conclusion that it was in fact Liu Hsin who, while borrowing from earlier astronomers, fashioned the universal system that informed this calendar; see Sivin, Cosmos and Computation in Early Chinese Mathematical Astronomy (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1969; rpt. from tp 55.1–3), p. 11, n. 1. Sivin translates the name of this system as

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the irreconcilable” through discovering the supposed regular interrelations of the sexagenary cycle, the lunar cycle, tropical years, eclipse periods, the “yearstar” Jupiter’s synodic revolutions, and conjunctions of the five naked-eye planets—all in accord with the celestial and terrestrial movements of the Five Phases 五行. The fundamental technical terms of the system are as follows: 1 chang 章 = 19 years (235 lunations) 1 pu 部 = 4 chang (76 years) 1 hui 會 = 27 chang (513 years, 47 lunar eclipse periods) 1 t’ung 統 = 3 hui (1,539 years) 1 yüan 元 = 3 t’ung (4,617 years, the smallest concording period  of sexagenary cycles, lunations, years, and eclipse periods) Jupiter calculations: 1 chi 紀 = 20 pu (1,520 years, Jupiter’s synodic revolution) 1 yüan 元 = 3 chi (4,560 years, a number equated to the yüan  above, after subtracting 57 disaster-years) In terms of accurately predicting celestial events, the system was an astronomical failure. It was modified almost immediately, in 85 ad, with little greater success and abandoned fully by the third century.11 Much ink has been expended both to understand the system and to explain why intelligent Chinese astronomers, working in an environment where each unpredicted eclipse was a bad omen for the state and threatened at the very least their own livelihood, might ever have toyed with it. Engaged in this effort, modern scholars tend to slight the fact that the Triple Dispensation system was intended not only to chart astronomical sequences but to map out dynastic history.12 “Triple Concordance,” while Needham translates “Three Sequences” (Joseph Needham and Wang Ling, Science and Civilisation in China [Cambridge: Cambridge U.P., 1958] 3, p. 407). As discussed below, the word t’ung is used in a technical way in the system, designating a set of conjunctions occurring every 1,539 years. Nonetheless, the san-t’ung were unambiguously associated with the rule of the Hsia, Shang, and Chou dynasties, hence my translation. 11  See the excellent discussion by Nathan Sivin on the fate of the calendar and “the demise of the cosmos” (Sivin, Cosmos and Computation, pp. 64–69). 12  Thus, for example, the proofs Liu gives are not based on observational astronomy, but are drawn from earlier canonical records of eclipses.

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Liu Hsin was at once the Stephen Hawkings and the Karl Marx of his day. The all-inclusiveness of his universal theory made it one of the most remarkable achievements of the time. It was to have resonances extending far beyond its limited usefulness as a calendrical device. It is not strange then that the three t’ung (Dispensations) are associated with that all-important triad of Chinese thought, Heaven-Earth-Humanity 天人地, and, in parallel, with colors (red, yellow, and black) and with the dynasties Hsia, Shang, and Chou, the calendars of which placed the new moon of the first month on chia-tzu 甲子, chia-ch’en 甲辰, and chia-shen 甲申 days, respectively, of the sexagenary cycle.13 The Triple Dispensation system thus confirms the ancient notion of orderly cycles of human history, tying them, quite literally, to the revolutions of the stars. The eschatology built into the Triple Dispensation system is, at first sight, equally reassuring. In terms of the cycles Liu Hsin sought to reconcile, the beginning of time, when all the various wheels were set in motion, would have occurred when “midnight on a day number one of a sexagenary day cycle … begins year number one of a sexagenary year cycle at the new moon on a winter solstice, the sun, moon, and five planets are lined up in conjunction, and on the next full moon there is a lunar eclipse.”14 Through a simple mathematical calculation, Liu determined that this universal concordance, the Superior Epoch of Grand Culmination 太極上元, as he called it, occurred once every 23,639,040 years.15 Thus, heaven and earth had begun over 140,000 years before and would end to begin again a mere 23.5 million years hence. Others, as we see, calculated differently. What is significant is that predictions of cosmic end-times began to enter the picture and that these were tied to a regularized vision of the dynastic cycle. Another prominent feature of the Triple Dispensation calendar was likewise to take on a life of its own. In order to reconcile the Jovian epoch of 4,560 years with the san-t’ung epoch of 4,617 years, Liu Hsin took out of count

13   Han-shu 漢書 (Peking: Chung-hua shu-chü, 1962) 21A, pp. 984–85. See also Ku Chiehkang 顧頡剛, “San-t’ung shuo ti yen-pien” 三統説的演變 Ku-shih pien 古史辨 (rpt. Hong Kong: T’ai-p’ing shu-chü, 1963) 7, pp. 282–90, for a discussion of how this concept was elaborated in the weft-texts 緯書. 14  Sivin, Cosmos and Computation, p. 18. 15  Other cosmogonists used the term “Grand Culmination” to mark the final phase in the process of differentiation by which the cosmos came into being; that is when yin separated from yang and the “ten-thousand things” came into existence. See Edward H. Schafer, Pacing the Void: T’ang Approaches to the Stars (Berkeley: U. of California P., 1977), pp. 25–29.

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fifty-seven yin and yang disaster-years. In each san-t’ung epoch, he argued, there would be years of drought and flood in the following progression: Normal Years 106 followed by 374 followed by 480 720 720 600 600 480 480 4,560 minus

Disaster Years 9 of drought (“yang-nine” 陽九) 9 of flood (“yin-nine” 陰九) 9 of drought 7 of flood 7 of drought 5 of flood 5 of drought 3 of flood 3 of drought 57 = 4,617 years

Given the frequency of flood and drought in ancient China, these numbers hardly seem disturbing. Still, nine straight years of drought or flood would, in an agricultural society, mean a calamity of almost unimaginable proportions. Whether for this reason or others, the words by which the system was known—yang-chiu pai-liu 陽九百六 (“yang-nine, one-hundred-six”)— became synonymous with the disasters that augured apocalypse in many later texts, Taoist texts prominent among them. Taoist scriptures function on Liu Hsin’s model of cosmic history, modified by the contributions, which remain to be accurately assessed, of other cosmogonists and of the weft-texts 緯書.16 Generalizing from a number of different accounts, we find that Taoist “history” begins with three pneumas, which divided from yin and yang at creation.17 They are associated not with the triad Heaven-Earth-Humanity, but with the triad Heaven-Earth-Water, and are given the colors blue, yellow, and white. Human history proper is a story of decline, which begins after these three original pneumas have divided. The smaller 16  The role of Han apocrypha in shaping Taoist means of communication with heaven and concomitant involvement with imperial symbols of legitimation is elucidated in Anna Seidel’s “Imperial Treasures and Taoist Sacraments: Taoist Roots in the Apocrypha,” in vol. 2 of Michel Strickmann, ed., Tantric and Taoist Studies: In Honour of R. A. Stein, Mélanges chinois et bouddhiques 21 (Brussels: Institut Belge des Hautes Études Chinoises, 1983) 2, pp. 291–371. 17  For some of the sources on which the following account is based, see my forthcoming Traces of Transcendence: Taoist Scriptures from the Second to the Sixth Centuries. (Berkeley: U. California P.).

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cycles of dynastic history occur because humanity is, through desire, unable to maintain the “rule of the three heavens,” the complex balancing act that keeps the three pneumas, the Five Phases, yin and yang—in short, the various constituents of the Tao—in harmony. The world has gone tragically awry and must be fixed by the restoration of the “rule of the three heavens.” From time to time, the Tao will take pity on suffering humanity and reintroduce into human time the laws of the three heavens through revelation brought to earth by the Tao in anthropomorphic form. When the revelatory sage is heeded, as for instance was Chang Liang 張良 (d. 189 bc) at the founding of the Han, then sage-rule is established for a time.18 But human willfulness and desire soon disrupt the harmony once again. Thus Taoist texts preach morality to those seen as living in the decadent age of lower antiquity, describing in vivid and awful terms the imminent apocalypse and methods for surviving it. Taking this Taoist historical message in its totality, it is clear that Taoist scriptures functioned to keep alive millennial expectations only alluded to in Han texts through continued reference to the fragmented and perilous condition of contemporary society. They not only give evidence that an era of terrestrial Great Peace has occurred before and thus is recoverable, but provide for adherents the moral requirements (usually cited as the Confucian virtues of humaneness 仁, duty 義, and filiality 孝) necessary to realize it once again. This traditional moral component of the Taoist message must have helped to recommend the religion to those rulers who sought to reunify China under the banner of Great Peace. It is impossible to gauge how widely Taoist texts spread in Six Dynasties society. Yet clearly after about 400 ad they were fairly widely known, because during the first half of the fifth century two rulers with ambitions of unification, one in the south and one in the north, took on the mantle of Taoist “Ruler of Great Peace” 太平之君.19 They were exceptions in their times only in the extent to which they adopted Taoist imagery, not in the fact that they did so. For finally, there was nothing in the Taoist conception of history that contradicted in any profound way the Confucian views of history outlined above. By the Sui dynasty, all prospective rulers, claiming descent from Lao-tzu or not, would to an extent take into consideration the Taoist refinements on what was after all a pan-Chinese notion of history. 18  On Chang Liang, see Wolfgang Bauer, “Der Herr vom Gelben Stein,” oe 3 (1956), pp. 137– 52, and, on his importance in Taoist texts, see Seidel, “Taoist Sacraments,” p. 344. 19  I refer to Liu Yü (363–422) of the Liu-Sung and T’o-pa Tao (r. 424–452) of the Northern Wei. See Seidel, “Taoist Sacraments,” pp. 349–58.

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The Failure of Taoist Prophecy and Apocalyptic Expectation

In The Founding of the T’ang Dynasty, Woodbridge Bingham notes a curious fact concerning the rebellions that brought down the Sui. Of the twenty-nine rebel leaders who took titles for themselves, nine were surnamed Li.20 Coupled with prognostications known to Yang Kuang 楊廣 (569–618), the last full emperor of the Sui, that claimed a man named Li was destined to rule, this fact takes on added significance. (We examine such prognostications, below.) Seidel is quite correct in connecting this with the Taoist image of Li Hung, but incorrect, I think, in suggesting that once Li Hung became deified in canonical scripture, he lost his political relevance.21 I argue instead that any apocalyptic account, no matter how fancifully visionary, has political relevance as long as it was expected to occur on earth and in human time. The specific scripture at issue is Yang Hsi’s 楊羲 (330–?) influential Ling-shu tzu-wen 靈書紫文 [Purple Texts Inscribed by the Spirits].22 This text, composed of materials personally received by the deity Lord Azure Youth 青童 from the Sage of the Latter Heavens, Li Hung 李弘, includes the Azure Youth’s biography of Lord Li and an account of his deputation of mysterious Transcendents to save the seed people from the final cataclysms.23 The forty-sixth ting-hai 丁亥 year after that having occurred during the ancient rule of T’ang 唐 [the sageking Yao 堯] was to mark the beginning of the end. There would appear a weak, young ruler, supported by hegemons:

20  Woodbridge Bingham, The Founding of the T’ang Dynasty, The Fall of the Sui and the Rise of the T’ang, A Preliminary Survey (Baltimore: Waverly Press, 1941), pp. 52–56, 130–39. 21  Seidel, “Image of the Perfect Ruler,” p. 243. 22  Ibid. refers to this text as the Shang-ch’ing hou-sheng tao-chün lieh-chi 上清後聖道君 列記, [Cheng-t’ung] Tao-tsang 正統道藏 work no. 442, following the numbering order given in Weng Tu-chien, comp., Combined Indices to the Authors and Titles of Books in Two Collections of Taoist Literature, Harvard-Yenching Institute Sinological Series 25 (Peking, 1925; hereafter cited as hy). As Isabelle Robinet has shown, however, hy no. 442 was originally part of Ling-shu tzu-wen, the major introductory portion of which is now collected in the Tao-tsang as hy no. 639. In this paper, I will refer to both simply as Ling-shu tzuwen. On its composition, see Isabelle Robinet, La révélation du Shangqing dans l’histoire du taoïsme, Publications de l’École française d’Extrême-Orient 137 (Paris: ÉFEO, 1984) 2, pp. 101–10. The entire text is translated in my forthcoming Traces of Transcendence. 23  One of the Shang-ch’ing texts on the Azure Lad is translated and studied in Paul W. Kroll, “In the Halls of the Azure Lad,” jaos 105.1 (1985), pp. 75–94. For the origins of the figure of a god of the east associated with cosmic order and divine retribution, see Jeffrey K. Riegel, “Kou-mang and Ju-shou,” Cahiers d’Extrême-Asie 5(1989–90), pp. 55–84.

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Later, both before and after the chia-shen year of his rule, the good will be planted as seed people and the remaining mortals will be weeded out. Pestilence and flood will wash over them; weapons and fire will circle below them. All the evil will be eradicated at once; all the violent will be destroyed. Those who delight in the Tao will hide away in the land, the good people will ascend mountains. The flowing filth will be shaken off, driven into the vast abyss. In this way all mortals will be divided, the good from the evil.24 In the following jen-ch’en 壬辰 year, the sage Li Hung will himself appear in the heavens, after the evil people have all been eradicated. This account is Yang Hsi’s version of the Celestial-Master notion that, at the final days, the “seed people” will be saved from cataclysms.25 The term “seed people” 種民, which we might also translate “electi,” is a pun. In the depraved present age, when the Tao is not able to fully circulate within humanity, it “implants” its morality and power in a select few, who are then to serve as the “seeds” of a new populace in the era of Great Peace once the evil ones have been eliminated by the catastrophes attending the last days of the old era. In the Shang-ch’ing 上清 scriptures the notion that the final days were at hand functioned as no more than a backdrop against which the drama of personal salvation was played out. Nonetheless, we know from the researches of Michel Strickmann that the prediction given here was taken seriously. The disappearance of the principals in the original Shang-ch’ing revelations and their possible deaths through ingestion of elixirs may have been a function of their belief that the horrific end-times were to begin in 387. The Taoist scholar T’ao Hung-ching 陶弘景, using his own calculations, figured that the year of Li Hung’s appearance must be 512.26 When even this calculation failed, a new version of the original prophecy appeared (a well-known text of it is carried in the “Chia-pu” 甲部 section of T’ai-p’ing ching 太平經 [Scripture of Great Peace]). It allowed that a “minor 24   Shang-ch’ing hou-sheng ti-chün lieh-chi, p. 3b. My discussion of this text and the translation of the passage provided here are indebted to the translation of portions of it in Michel Strickmann, Le taoïsme du Mao chan: Chronique d’une révélation (Paris: Collège du France, Institut des Hautes Études Chinoises, 1981), pp. 209–78. 25  On this term, see Yoshioka Yoshitoyo 吉岡義豊, “Rikuchō Dōkyō no shumin shisō” 六朝 道教の種民思想, idem, Dōkyō to Bukkyō 道教と仏教 (Tokyo: Kokushō kankokai, 1976) 3, pp 221–84; Seidel, “Le sūtra merveilleux,” p. 319; and Erik Zürcher, “Prince Moonlight,” tp 68.1–3 (1982), p. 5, n. 10. 26  Michel Strickmann, “On the Alchemy of T’ao Hung-ching,” Welch and Seidel, eds., Facets of Taoism, pp. 151–55.

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yang-nine” would occur forty-six ting-hai years after Yao, signaling the appearance of a “minor lord of Great Peace.”27 Moreover, the “major yang-nine” and the concomitant appearance of Li Hung were scheduled for fifty-five ting-hai years after Yao.28 Another way that Taoist texts tended to avoid the pitfalls of specific prophecy was through adapting the apparent numerical specificity of Liu Hsin’s Triple Dispensation calendar to their own ends. The Ling-pao scriptures thus provide for five different minor and major yang-chiu pai-liu cycles, each associated with a five-phases aspect. At the time of each major cycle, the appropriate one of the Five Thearchs would, according to the scriptures, send his envoys to the directionally appropriate Marchmount to save the elect from harm. After 999,999 years, there would be a general catastrophe, heaven and earth would change places, and all would be destroyed including the very heavens

27  Wang Ming 王明, ed., T’ai-p’ing ching ho-chiao 太平經合校 (Peking: Chung-hua, 1979), pp. 1–10. On the late-6th-c. dating of this portion of the text, see Seidel, “Taoist Sacraments,” pp. 335–40, and Barbara Kandel, “The Origin and Transmission of the Scripture on General Welfare: The History of an Unofficial Text,” Mitteilungen der Gesellschaft für Natur- und Völkerkunde Ostasiens 75 (1979), pp. 77–79. As mentioned, the terms “yang-nine” and “onehundred six” lose all specificity in Taoist texts. Though still associated with yang and yin, respectively, the terms come to denote no more than the catastrophic drought and flood that attend the end of an era. This process can be seen already in the Shang-ch’ing texts of Yang Hsi. His divine informants told him of two island-mountains in the eastern seas named “Yin Completed” and “Yang Extended,” which serve as barometers. When “yangnine” is about to arrive the waters of Yin Completed Mountain are exhausted and, at the same time, begin to cover Yang-Extended Mountain; when “one-hundred six” approaches, the situation is reversed. The passage ends with the warning that the water level over Yin-Completed Mountain has already reached the height of 90,000 feet. The floods of “one-hundred six” are soon to come, they warn Yang. (See Chen-kao 真詰 [hy no. 1010] 14, pp. 20a–b.) 28  The other scripture containing this prediction is San-t’ien cheng-fa ching 三天正法經, a text of the Shang-ch’ing lineage but not composed by Yang Hsi. (See Robinet, Shangqing 2, pp. 87–91, for an analysis of this text and a comparison of surviving versions.) Tung-yüan shen-chou ching 洞淵神咒經, an apocalyptic text composed ca. 420, may have been the earliest to recast the Li Hung predictions. It mentions the descent of Li Hung and emphasizes the same cyclical year-designations mentioned in Ling-shu tzu-wen without providing any count from the reign of Yao. See Christine Mollier, “Messianisme taoïste de la Chine médiévale: Étude du Dongyuan shenzhou jing,” (Ph.D. diss., Université de Paris VII, 1986), pp. 284–304.

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themselves. For those bearing the charms of Ling-pao, however, destruction “seems but a sleep,” and they would be reborn in the new heaven and earth.29 The text titled San-t’ien cheng-fa ching 三天正法經 (Scripture of the Correct Law of the Three Heavens) contains yet another method of computation. This method is based on the relative “revolutions” of heaven and earth. Relative to the Dipper, the heavens are said to revolve once each 36 days and the earth once each 33 days. Multiplying this number by 360 in the former case and 330 in the latter, we get one chou 周 of heaven and earth. In the case of heaven, a minor chieh 劫 occurs after 3,600 chou and a major one after 9,600 chou. For heaven, the numbers are 3,300 chou and 9,300 chou.30 While such numbers are impossibly large, they are nonetheless anxietyproducing, for no one could know when the cycles began or just where they were in the progression. The Ling-pao text that I have cited states that the grand dénouement is to take place “in the keng-tzu 更子 year after the three dragons.”31 This oracular pronouncement may have had some meaning for the author and original recipients of the text, but I have found it nowhere elucidated for the benefit of later readers. At the same time, such texts are quite specific on the sufferings in store for the miserable humans of the latter days. One reads such phrases as “floods will reach up to the heavens and, of human and beast, only one in 10,000 will be spared,” “the sun and moon will depart from their orderly cycles, the five grains will not ripen, and the people will flee as the massive waters rise,” “the rivers will all dry up and dust will rise from the bottoms of the seas,” or “great floods will wash away the filthy and unclean.” In all their gory specificity, such descriptions differ only in scope from that other currently popular genre of scare literature, descriptions of the damned in the earth-prisons, which, we must remember, were based on the all too real sufferings of those charged with crimes facing brutal official inquisitors. Descriptions of the apocalypse, too, were based on both actual events and contemporary perceptions of disorder 29   Yüan-shih wu-lao ch’ih-shu wu-p’ien chen-wen 元始五老赤書五篇真文 (hy no. 22) 2, pp. 4b–9a. 30  Cited, with minor variants, in hy no. 1130 (6, pp. 3b–4b); hy no. 1131 (9, pp. 1a–4b); and hy no. 1026 (2, pp. 4b–8a). Citation in Wu-shang pi-yao 無上秘要 (hy no. 1130) confirms that this text was in circulation by 574. (For these and other surviving fragments of the text, see Robinet, Shangqing 2, pp. 87–91.) Yet a third method of computation appears in T’ai-shang Lao-chün chung-ching 太上老君中經 (hy no. 1160) 2, pp. 15b ff. (see Kristofer M. Schipper, “Le Calendrier de Jade: Note sur le Laozi zhongjing,” Nachrichten der Gesellschaft für Natur- und Völkerkunde Ostasiens 125 [1979], pp. 75–80), but this text appears to be much older than those under consideration here. 31   h y (no. 22) 1, p. 6b, 1. 8.

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during the tumultuous days of the Period of Division. Is it any wonder that the bravest of mortals quailed at such uncertain prospects? While its specific prophecy had failed to materialize and had to be adjusted in various ways, the Purple Texts remained influential. At least half a dozen later Taoist scriptures associated with various textual lineages recounted the imminent advent of Li Hung, some spelling out his name 木子弓口 in prophetic verse.32 By the sixth century, as Seidel and Zürcher have shown in a remarkable pair of articles, we find Buddho-Taoist amalgams—a Ling-pao text in which Li Hung is to descend arm-in-arm with Maitreya and a Buddhist apocryphal scripture, full of Taoist imagery, in which the promised savior is to come from Mount P’eng-lai 蓬來.33 Even texts that did not specifically mention Li Hung tended to borrow imagery from the Purple Texts with the effect that for nearly three centuries religious writers in China were obsessed with the notion that they lived in the final days.34

The Sui Confronts the Millennium

Yang Chien 楊堅 (541–604), founder of the Sui dynasty, was fully aware of the opportunities and dangers of coming to the throne in an apocalyptic age. Arthur F. Wright has amply demonstrated Yang Chien’s appeals to the ritual and symbolic values of both Buddhism and Taoism to reaffirm his rule over a newly unified China.35 In assessing Yang’s claim to be the sage-ruler of the new era we need not distinguish sharply between the two religions for, as Seidel and Zürcher have shown, apocalyptic writing was one area where interchange between Taoism and Buddhism was intense. Thus, while one of Yang Chien’s concerns as a ruler was clearly to rebuild the Buddhist establishment after the repressions of the Northern Chou dynasty, he was not loath to accept Taoist 32  These include Tung-yüan shen-chou ching (hy no. 335), Cheng-i T’ien-shih kao Chao Sheng k’ou-chüeh 正一天師吿趙昇口訣 (hy no. 1263), Lao-chün yin-sung chieh ching 老君音 誦戒經 [hy no. 784), T’ai-shang ling-pao Lao-tzu hua-hu miao-ching 太上靈寶老子化 胡妙經 (Stein ms. no. 2081), and the chia-pu sect. of T’ai-p’ing ching, all mentioned by Seidel, as well as T’ai-shang ling-pao t’ien-ti yün-tu tzu-jan miao-ching 太上靈寶天地運 度自然妙經 [hy no. 322), analyzed in Zürcher, “Prince Moonlight,” pp. 38–44. 33  Zürcher, “Prince Moonlight,” and Seidel, “Le sūtra merveilleux.” 34  By the end of the Six Dynasties, references to the apocalypse had begun to occur in the works of secular writers as well. (See below, n. 62.) 35  Arthur F. Wright, “The Formation of Sui Ideology, 581–604,” John K. Fairbank, ed., Chinese Thought and Institutions (Chicago: U. Chicago P., 1957), pp. 71–104, and idem, The Sui Dynasty: The Unification of China, ad 581–617 (New York: Knopf, 1978), pp. 126–38.

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symbolism as well when it served to prove that a new age of Great Peace had dawned. The clearest indication that Yang wished to present himself as ruler of a new cosmic era was his adoption of the reign-title k’ai-huang 開皇 (Inaugural Luminary). As the Sui court historian Wang Shao 王劭 noted, this is the name of a kalpa-cycle drawn from the Ling-pao scriptures.36 Significantly, that kalpa is the one (among three initial kalpa in the creation of the world) in which the supreme deity of the Ling-pao scriptures, the Heavenly Worthy of Primal Origins, first takes human shape to rule over an aeon of unspeakable bliss.37 Among other auguries presented to the throne in support of this claim, there was the best of scientific proofs that the new era equaled that of the mythical ruler Yao—the evidence of the gnomon that days were growing longer.38 As we might expect, the populace as well was invited to join in the blessings of the new era. Wang Shao’s Record of [Auspicious] Responses Evoked by the Śarīra describes Yang Chien’s establishment of thirty stupas throughout the kingdom to house holy relics he had received from a mysterious priest, and the author notes the way in which these holy objects were greeted by the people. They came daily in droves to conduct prayer-services, to accept Buddhist precepts, and to vow that “from today forward we will practice good and eradicate evil; life after life, generation after generation being born again as servants of the Great Sui.”39 Here, then, were the “seed-people” of the new dispensation. While Yang Chien took steps to proscribe the apocryphal weft-texts in 593, most likely in an effort to end eschatological speculation, he himself reveled in the assurances such books brought him. Among the proofs of the new age presented to Yang Chien were several that were to become prominent again at the time of Li Yüan’s rise. According to Wang Shao, a “pneuma-watcher” had, during the reign of Chou Wu-ti 武帝 (560–578), noticed a “Child-of-Heaven 36   Sui-shu 隋書 (Peking; Chung-hua, 1973) 69, pp. 1606–7. 37  See, inter alia., hy no. 457, pp. 2a–3b; hy no. 23, pp. 11b–13b; and hy no. 318, pp. 1 a–b. According to this Taoist vision of past paradise, it is not until the beginning of the reigns of the Three Luminaries 三皇 that the perfect world of the “former heavens” begins to erode. 38   Sui-shu 69, pp. 1610–11. 39   Kuang Hung-ming chi 廣弘明集, in Taishō shinshū daizōkyō 大正新修大蔵經 (Tokyo: Taishō issaikyō kankōkai, 1924–35; hereafter, t), no. 2103, vol. 52, ch. 17, p. 214b. This text states that Yang Chien was to revive the Buddhist dharma as “benevolent father of all the heavens” after it had been “wiped out” 滅 by the Chou. Of course this scenario accords with none of the canonical Buddhist accounts of the “end of the dharma.” See also Miyakawa Hisayuki 宮川尚志 Rikuchōshi kenkyū shūkyō hen 六朝史研究宗教篇 (Kyoto: Heiraku shoten, 1964), p. 182.

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pneuma” over Hao-chou 毫州 (in present-day An-hui province). Because of this prediction, Wu-ti had killed the inciting notary of Hao-chou, replacing him with Yang Chien. Nor was this all. A bit to the northwest, in Ch’en-liu 陳留, a shrine to Lao-tzu featured an ancient, withered cypress tree said to date to the time of the sage himself. Legend had it that when the branches of this tree curled on the southeast side, pointing northwest, a sage-ruler would appear and Lao-tzu’s teachings would flourish again. During the Ch’i dynasty, the tree began to grow branches on the appropriate side, and three “youths” appeared at night to sing “In front of Lao-tzu’s temple, the ancient, withered tree—its branches to the southeast form a canopy. A sage lord will appear from here.” When Yang Chien served in Hao-chou, he visited the shrine, and the withered branches indeed began to point to the northwest, the direction of the capital.40 Whether they portrayed themselves as divine rulers of Buddhist or Taoist stripe, the Sui rulers’ assurances that the new era had dawned were not finally satisfying. Apocalyptic expectations arose again with a fury during the reign of Yang Kuang (Sui Yang-ti 煬帝; r. 604–617). The background events leading to the new wave of oracles seem to have been the flood in the lower Yellow River valley in 611 and the failure of Yang’s campaigns from 612 to 614 against the Koguryŏ.41 At about this time, popular ditties, traditionally known as “youth prophecies” 童謠, like the song chanted by the three youths mentioned above, began to circulate, foretelling that a man surnamed Li was destined to rule or, in another case, that “a white-flag child of heaven will emerge from the Eastern Seas.”42 The former, the “Peach-plum child” 桃李子 song, seems to have been

40   Sui-shu 69, p. 1604. The T’ang historiographers under the direction of Wei Cheng 魏徵 (580–643) have doubtless deleted many of the propitious signs proffered the Sui rulers, but they did leave for posterity accounts, such as the above, which seemed to augur the rise of the T’ang. The rebirth of the withered tree near Lao-tzu’s temple in Hao-chou was represented in this way, not only by later historians (Hsin T’ang-shu 新唐書 [Peking: Chung-hua, 1975] 34, p. 874), but by Lao-tzu himself, when he appeared to the illiterate Chi Shan-hsing 吉善行 in 620 (see below, n. 66, for references to this event). 41  Bingham, Founding of the T’ang, pp. 39–43. It is a measure of the times that in 609, when a band of white-crowned sectarians, carrying incense and flowers and proclaiming one among their number to be the future Buddha Maitreya, stormed the “Establishing the Kingdom” 建國 Gate of Lo-yang, the guards there did not stop them, but fell back and did obeisance. Over one thousand families in the capital district were implicated in this uprising (Tzu-chih t’ung-chien 資治通鑑 [Peking: Chung-hua, 1976] 181, p. 5648). 42  Both of these are mentioned in Wen Ta-ya’s 溫大雅, Ta-T’ang ch’uang-yeh ch’i-chü-chu 大唐創業起居注 (TSCC edn.; hereafter, CYCCC) 1, p. 8.

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circulated in support of the rebel Li Mi 李密.43 Whatever the origin of the songs, they drew upon that common stock of apocalyptic imagery that found its earliest literary expression in the Purple Texts. We find reference to the surname Li, to the mythical emperor Yao, and to the “Eastern Seas,” site of the mythical isles. It is not surprising, then, that one of the earliest rebels, T’ang Pi 唐弼, rose up under the banner of an “emperor” named Li Hung, while taking for himself the title “king of T’ang.” Even T’ang Pi’s name is significant—it means “assistant to T’ang.”44 Yang Kuang’s several symbolic responses to these events are telling as well. In 615 he executed two officials, Li Hun 李渾 and Li Min 李敏 (whose youthful name was Hung-erh 洪兒 “flood-child”), together with their families. He did this in the first place because the mage 方士 An Chia-t’o 安伽陀 had informed him that one of the Li clan was destined to rule, but also because the given name of one of them was a near homophone to the word “flood” 洪, while the other was once called “flood-child”: “hung” (“flood”), being homophonous with the hung of Li Hung, made the names of these unfortunate two, in effect, “Li Hung.” At about the same time, although rebellion had already spread throughout the northern parts of his realm, Yang Kuang went to his Fen-yang 汾陽 Palace in Lou-fan 樓煩 (present-day Ching-yüeh county in northern Shansi) to “escape the heat.”45 Wen Ta-ya 溫大雅 provides information suggesting that the purpose of this visit might have been somewhat different. Fen-yang Palace was built, Wen tells us, in response to the prediction of another “pneuma-watcher” that there was a “child-of-heaven pneuma” in the northwest, at Lou-fan. We noted, above, that the story of the cypress tree at Lao-tzu’s temple also involved a rejuvenation beginning in the northwest, and thus Wen’s assertion is provided with a wider context.46 If the desire to reassert his role as sagelord prompted, at least in part, Yang Kuang’s journey, he failed miserably, both

43  For a discussion of the various versions of this song, see Woodbridge Bingham, “The Rise of Li in a Ballad Prophecy,” JAOS 61 (1941), pp. 272–80. 44  This is the particular bit of evidence that attracted the attention of Seidel (“Image of the Perfect Ruler,” p. 244). I have the late Michel Strickmann to thank for suggesting the significance of T’ang Pi’s name. 45  Bingham, Founding of the T’ang, pp. 47–48. 46   C YCCC 1, p. 4. The northwestly direction, the “Gate of Heaven” according to the “Latter Heaven” arrangement of the eight trigrams used by Taoists for ritual purposes, is seen below, in the verses presented to Li Yüan.

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symbolically and actually.47 He was besieged at Yen-men 雁門 by the Turks for a month. This humiliating defeat, historians agree, was the beginning of the end for Yang Kuang.

Li Yüan Responds

The story of Li Yüan’s uprising and of the auspicious signs that attended it has been told several times. We need not recount it again. Here, we want simply to assess the major themes of the image that Li Yüan created for himself (or that was created for him). For this purpose, there is no better source than the prophetic verses forwarded to Li by P’ei Chi 裴寂 (560–619) and other officials as they participated in the ritual dance whereby the officials of a reluctant conqueror urge him thrice to take the throne. These are recorded in the unique eye-witness account of the T’ai-yüan uprising written by Wen Ta-ya.48 The T’aiyüan verses, as I will call them, make reference to nearly every celestial sign or augury that attended Li Yüan’s seizure of power. This is a clear indication that they are ex eventu prophecy (or perhaps judiciously selected fragments of a larger corpus), for they fit the account Wen Ta-ya gives of the events the verses purport to verify only too closely. This fact should not lead us to suspect that they were offered skeptically, for, as I hope to show, they also tally closely with prominent images in the Tao-Buddhist apocryphal writings that we have been discussing. Whether written before or after the fact, whether accurately reported from preexisting sources or rewritten for the occasion, the T’ai-yüan verses—and the portents that inform them—present a unified image of Li Yüan, descendant of Lao-tzu, queller of disorder, and sage-lord of the new eon. It is the textual depth and thus the religious resonance of this image, rather than any contemporary sighting or ad hoc proof, which made it ring true. 47  There are other indications that Yang Kuang sought symbolically to preempt the role of sage-lord: when he accompanied his troops to Liao-tung 遼東 in preparation for the first of his Korean campaigns in 612, two large white birds were seen to descend from the sky. Yü Ch’o’s 虞綽 stele-inscription commemorating this event plays on the images of the “Emperor on campaign from the east” and the mystical isles of the eastern seas in a way that suggests influences from those texts (discussed above) that treat of Li Hung, the Blue Youth, and Maitreya (Sui-shu 76, p. 1739). Further, “large white birds,” sometimes swangeese 鴻 and sometimes cranes 鶴, are part of the stock of apocalyptic images found in Taoist texts; see Robinet, Shangqing 1, p. 140. 48   C YCCC 3, pp. 37–38. On the importance of Wen Ta-ya’s account for the history of this period, see Woodbridge Bingham, “Wen Ta-ya: The First Recorder of T’ang History,” JAOS 57.4 (1937). pp. 368–74.

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Below I provide first a translation of the verses themselves, followed by glosses drawn from Wen Ta-ya’s account. Following that, we look at the primary themes and images of the verses and at their “canonical” sources. The first five verses, or fragments of verses, were said to have been composed by a “spirit-person” 神人 of T’ai-yüan, Hui-hua ni 慧化尼 The name leads one to suspect that they may have been attributed to a nun (perhaps from the T’ung-tzu Temple 童子寺 that figures in the verses), but no further information is given, and this “spirit” is unknown in other sources. 1 Eighteen Children of the Eastern Seas, Eight wells summons the Three Armies. In his hands he holds a pair of white sparrows; On his head he wears purple clouds.

東海十八子 八井喚二軍 手持雙白雀 頭上戴紫雲

“Eighteen children” spells out the graphic elements in the surname Li (十八 子 = 李), and “Eight Wells,” together with “three,” the given-name Yüan (八井 = 幷 + 氵 = 氵 + 幷 = 淵).49 The “Three Armies” of the T’ang uprising were led by Li Yüan’s two sons, Chien-ch’eng 建成 and Shih-min 世民, and by P’ei Chi. On July 23, 617, the day after Li Yüan had appointed his three generals, a white sparrow was captured and presented by a monk whose lay surname was Li. That afternoon, another white sparrow came to rest on a tree in front of Yüan’s standard. For the next three mornings, a purple cloud in the shape of a dragon or tiger was observed to hover over his residence.50 2 Ting-ch’ou together with chia-tzu, He hid away, entering the hall. Why does he sit in the hall? In the center is the child of heaven.

丁丑與甲子 深藏入堂里 何意坐堂里 中央有天子

This verse refers to June 23, 617, the fifth day of the fifth lunar month of the Tingch’ou reign-year, when Li Yüan outwardly broke with the Sui by imprisoning 49  Tun-huang Taoist scriptures dating to the Six Dynasties and T’ang periods regularly employ the graphic variants 渕, or 渆, for 淵 (yüan). See Ōfuchi Ninji 大淵忍爾, Tonkō Dōkyō mokurokuhen 敦煌道經目録篇 (Tokyo: Fukutake shoten, 1978), p. 396. Li Hu 虎 (d. 551), Li Yüan’s father, himself wrote the graph in this fashion. See Chung-kuo shu-fa tatzu-tien 中國書法大字典 (Taipei: Ta-t’ung shu-chü, 1971), p. 696. 50   C YCCC 1, p. 10.

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two Sui officials. As if a sign from heaven, a Turk raid occurred two days later. As a result, the two officials were charged with having incited the raid and were executed. “Sitting in the hall,” in addition to standing for Li Yüan’s title (duke of T’ang) and the eventual name of his dynasty, refers to the fact that the Turks withdrew of their own accord, awed by Li Yüan’s “surpassing knowledge and courage, which must have been granted by heaven.”51 3 From the northwest, heavenly fire reflects on Dragon Mountain. The youth’s red beams link with the Dipper. The youth hangs a white banner atop a tree. Hu soldiers spread about, before and behind; Clapping their hands, they sing “t’ang t’ang” And chase sheep that flee to the south.

西北天火照龍山 童子赤光連北斗 童子木上懸白番 胡兵紛紜漓前后 拍手唱堂堂 驅羊向南走

On February 5, 617, a light like a burning fire appeared in the night northeast of Li Yüan’s Chin-yang Palace 晉陽宮, hovering directly over Dragon Mountain. This apparition pointed to the southwest, the direction of the capital. A purple pneuma also appeared over the T’ung-tzu 童子 (Youth) Temple on Dragon Mountain, breaking through the glittering fire and reaching up to the Northern Dipper.52 The second and third characters of line three use the temple to spell out the surname Li (子 + 木 = 李). Through homophony, “sheep” refers to Yang Kuang and the song to the name of the coming dynasty. After his month-long encirclement by the Turks at Yen-men in 615, Yang Kuang withdrew to his southern capital. 4 If the Hu soldiers do not give aid, Han will not be whole. The Protector who should rule the center is eight wells.

胡兵未濟漢不整 治中都護有八井

This verse refers to the Turkish support of Li Yüan. The “central capital” is Ch’ang-an, and “eight wells,” as above, Yüan himself.

51   C YCCC 1, pp. 5–6. 52   C YCCC 1, p. 4.

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5 We rise up, rank on rank, With humanity and duty we march. With military virtue nine times nine, He achieves fame and renown. The youth below the tree, water a hundred chang deep. The eastern family’s well is layered, with pentachrome stars. If you do not place faith in my words, Then ask the Prior-born Wei.

興伍伍 仁義行 武德九九 得聲名 童子木底百丈水 東家井重五色星 我言不可信 問取衛先生

The opening lines contain homophonic word-play: that between “rank” and “military” and between “virtue” and “to achieve.” The “youth below the tree” spells out the surname Li; and water (水 = 氵) plus “layered well” (㐩 = 并) forms another way of writing the name Yüan (see above). “Prior-born” was at this time a Taoist term of respect for a master. Master Wei refers to Wei Yüansung 衛元嵩, putative author of the following verse which was said to have been composed in 570: 1



5



10



6 Hsü and hai years (614/15), lord and ministers in chaos. Tzu and ch’ou (616/17), destroy the city walls. Yin and mao (618/19), pacified as we wish; Dragon-snakes quell the four quarters. Eighteen becomes a male; Flood waters rule beside the sword. In market and court, duty returns to governance— The people know peace, all undisturbed. A person’s words are enduring; People again speak of that which is not enduring. Consider well for the lord, < . . > Yü and T’ang.53

戌亥君臣亂 子丑破城隍 寅卯如欲定 龍蛇伏四方 十八成男子 洪水主刀傍 市朝義歸政 人寧俱不荒 人言有恆性 也復道非常 為君好思量 禹湯

53  Howard Wechsler has attributed the lacunae here to the fact that at first two ancient methods of gaining the mandate, that of Yü (by moral virtue) and that of the founder of the Shang, T’ang 湯 (by military might), were thought to be united in Li Yüan, a concept that was later abandoned; Wechsler, Offerings of Jade and Silk, pp. 67–68. For the two rulers in one phrase, the locus classicus is a remark of a Lu minister that the rapid rise of Yü

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15



Peach Spring flowers < . . > As the plum tree rises loftily. Just watch for the yin and mao years, When deep waters inundate the yellow poplar.54

桃源花 李樹起堂堂 只看寅卯歲 深水沒黃楊

The chronology of the first three lines reflects the fall of the Sui and the founding of the T’ang. “Eighteen becomes a male” (line 5) spells out the surname Li; and “waters rule beside a sword” is another way to form the name Yüan (水主 刀傍 = 注 = 併). “Duty … governance” (line 7) refers to the fact that the T’ang armies were called the “duty-bound troops” 義軍 “That which is not enduring” (line 10) alludes to the opening words of Tao-te ching—“The Tao may be spoken of, yet this is not the enduring Tao.” “Again speak” 復道 may equally be read “again make a Tao of.” The point seems to be that, under a constant ruler, the people may again return to the Tao, speaking of that which, while it cannot be caught in words, should be spoken of in all its extraordinary multiplicity.55 Line 14’s “the plum tree rises loftily,” were we to drop the last character, might be read “the Li family establishes the T’ang.” “Poplar” (line 16) is the surname of the ruling family of the Sui dynasty. The most prominent apocalyptic image in the T’ai-yüan verses is that of the flood, which is mentioned specifically three times (no. 5, line 5; no. 6, lines 6, 16).56 Two of these instances occur in connection with the spelling out of Li Yüan’s given name, which by itself means “watery abyss.” The alternative rendering of it as “eight wells” (1.2; 4.2; and 5.6) also plays obliquely on this flood image. As mentioned above, already in 615 Yang Kuang executed two officials not only because their surname was Li, but because their given names had something to do with the word hung [flood]. The sage-lord of the and T’ang could be attributed to the fact that they “took blame on themselves,” unlike evil rulers who “blamed others”; see Tso-chuan (Chuang 11), Shih-san ching chu-shu edn. (Peking: Chunghua, 1980), vol. 2, p. 1770a. Since this line goes with the preceding (“Think well of the lord”), it is likely that this implication applies here as well. The ellipsis might then read “ Yü and T’ang.” 54  This poem has been translated and discussed by Bingham, “The Rise of Li,” pp. 277–80. 55  As we see below, the phrase 非常 had by T’ang times acquired something of its modern sense of “extraordinary,” in addition to the classical sense of the Lao-tzu text. 56  The Sui took for itself the phase “fire,” which, according to the “mutual conquest” order of the Five Phases 五行, is overcome by water. By this time, however, the five phases were associated with successive dynasties according to the “mutual production” order. Indeed, the T’ang took for itself the phase earth and not water. The prevalence of flood images in the writings of this period, then, is to be traced to apocalyptic literature rather than to standard works on the succession of the five phases.

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Shang-ch’ing Purple Texts, Li Hung, while not in this text unilaterally associated with flood, also has a given name homophonous with hung. More to the point, it was this sign of the end-time that had come to be emphasized in Taoist apocalyptic texts.57 Section “chia-pu” of the Scripture of Great Peace, for instance, singles out the flood of the “Lesser Lord of Great Peace” for specific treatment: “There will be in turn disasters of warfare, illness, and fire, but no great flood. [Instead], there will be widespread minor floods …”58 The prophetic verses of the Scripture of the Revolutions of Heaven and Earth fixate even more on the flood image. In this scripture, warfare and flood are the twin horsemen of the apocalypse: Weapons and swords will strike from all sides, Not one day can this be delayed! Then, the conjunction of flood— Spreading and rising until it joins with heaven.59 Another prominent image in the T’ai-yüan verses is that of the “youth” 童子 (3.2–3 and 5.5), reinforced by the use of the word “child” 子 (1.1 and 6.5) in various combinations to spell out the surname Li. This image, too, seems to originate with the Purple Texts and specifically with the figure of the Azure Youth, who, while not surnamed Li, was the Supreme Minister of Li Hung. Associated with the east, nascent yang energies, and new growth, he is a primary symbol of the dawning age. In the Purple Texts, which he compiled for the salvation of humanity, the Azure Youth reveals the particular markings of the “seed people,” who were to populate a rejuvenated earth.60 Due to this soteric role and to the fact that, as the highest-ranking of the deities to appear to Yang Hsi, he was engagingly described in Yang’s transcripts of his visions, the Azure Youth is the true “savior” of the Shang-ch’ing texts.61 Certainly he is the most accessible 57  Christine Mollier points out that the prevalence of flood imagery in Taoist accounts of “l’apocalypse purificatrice” stems from the pervasive influence of the myth of sage-king Yü quelling the flood. (Mollier, “Messianisme taoïste,” pp. 302–4.) 58  Wang, T’ai-p’ing ching ho-chiao, p. 4. 59   H Y (no. 322), pp. 5b, 11. 6–7. 60   H Y (no. 442), pp. 5b–13a. 61  For Shang-ch’ing references to the Azure Youth, see Kroll, “Azure Lad,” pp. 75–79. Since the Azure Youth was the teacher of Wei Hua-ts’un 魏華存 (252–344), Yang Hsi’s own primary instructress from the realm of the Perfected, many of Yang’s scriptures originated with him. His compassion for humanity and his painful search for scriptures to reveal to those worthy in the world below are fully described in the opening passages of Ling-shu tzu-wen.

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of the higher deities. His residence was not in the heavens, but on the earthly plane; on Fang-chu 方諸, one of the mystical isles floating in the eastern seas. Our suspicion that images of the youth in the T’ai-yüan verses might have something to do with the Azure Youth thus finds reinforcement in the fact that this youth is also associated with the “Eastern Seas” 東海 (1.1) or, more obscurely, the “eastern family’s well” 東家井 (5.4). There is further evidence that, by the late-sixth century, the Azure Youth had become firmly associated with the apocalypse and that this association was widely known. The poet Yü Hsin 庾信 (513–581), for example, refers to him in this fashion in the opening verse of his “Ten Stanzas to the Taoist Tune ‘Pacing the Void’”; this despite the fact that the “Stanzas” are more thoroughly indebted to the Ling-pao scriptures, where the Azure Youth does not appear.62 The image of the Azure Youth even had its influence on Buddhist apocryphal literature of the period. The Scripture of the Monk Shou-lo (Shou-lo pi-ch’iu ching 首羅比丘經), which Erik Zürcher dates to the sixth century, portrays the messianic activities of the Bodhisattva Candraprabha-kumāra in a way that, as Zürcher cogently demonstrates, marks it as a representative of “Buddho-Taoist eschatology.”63 While it is quite possible that the image of the Azure Youth during the Six Dynasties had something to do with the elevation of this “obscure Bodhisattva,” whose name meant for Chinese ignorant of Sanskrit “Moonlight Youth” more than “Prince Moonlight,” to a position of eminence in apocalyptic Buddhist literature, it is even more striking that in this text the Bodhisattva’s residence is on Mount P’eng-lai in the eastern Seas. Once again, then, we have a “youth” of the eastern seas who was to come and lead the elect into a new age. One feature of the T’ai-yüan verses that, to my knowledge, never appears in Taoist-inspired apocalyptic literature is the association of the messianic figure with the color white (1.3 and 3.3). As noted above, Li Yüan was early on made aware of the prophetic verse claiming that “a white-bannered Child of Heaven will emerge from the eastern seas.” This image seems to come from the Buddhist side of a thoroughly Buddho-Taoist amalgam of apocalyptic 62  Interestingly, Yü breaks up the Azure Youth’s name, much in the style of the prophetic verses we have been examining: “The Azure-robed one 青童 ascends Lesser Chamber (a peak of Mount Sung);/ The Youth 童子 proceeds to P’eng-lai./ He roams about, listening in the four directions, / And in a trice we pass through the Three Calamities.” (Hsü I-min 評逢民, ed., Yü Tzu-shan chi-chu, 庚子山集注 [Peking: Chung-hua, 1980] 2, p. 392.) The “Three Calamities” are fire, flood, and warfare—a clear reference to the end-times. Yü Hsin here portrays the Azure Youth in the role of savior, already presented in the Purple Texts, “listening” for reports of the just seed-people whom he will save from the coming disasters. 63  See Zürcher, “Prince Moonlight,” esp. pp. 33 ff.

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imagery. In early Buddhist texts dealing with the end of the dharma, monk’s robes turning from black to white was a sign of automatic laicization. Maitreya movements subsequently adopted white as the color of their robes, and the Scripture of Verification 證明經, an apocalyptic Buddhist text composed between 560 and 589, makes constant reference to “the white robed”— members of the group for whom the text was written.64 But Li Hung, the Azure Youth, and Lao-tzu are (with the exception that the latter was born with white hair) never associated with the color white.65 When we come to the reported appearances of Lao-tzu in confirmation of Li Yüan’s mandate, however, the god invariably dons white.66 Other isolated symbols found in the T’ai-yüan verses—the north-eastern “gate of heaven,” the white bird, purple clouds, and the like—are easily identified in the apocalyptic literature of the fifth and sixth centuries. We shall not trace these individually, but shall turn to one final feature of the verses that is, I think, very significant. The final verse is attributed to Wei Yüan-sung, the 64  Michel Strickmann, “The Consecration Sūtra: A Buddhist Book of Spells,” in Robert E. Buswell, Jr., ed., Buddhist Apocrypha in East Asia and Tibet (Honolulu: U. of Hawaii P., 1990), p. 114, n. 35. 65  It may be significant that in the 5th-c. Taoist apocalyptic text studied by Seidel, Li Hung is to descend together with Maitreya at the inauguration of the era of Great Peace; Seidel, “Le sūtra merveilleux,” pp. 323–25. While white robes are not mentioned in this text, it may be among sects such as the one that produced this scripture that the image of a white-robed Lao-tzu or Li Hung first appeared. 66  This new iconography is presented most strikingly in the numerous accounts of Lao-tzu’s several appearances to the commoner Chi Shan-hsing on Mount Yang-chiao in 620, during the T’ang force’s campaign against Liu Hei-ta 劉黑闥. In addition to the usual white hair, Lao-tzu is described as riding a white horse and garbed in unbleached silk from head to foot. Each time he appears, he is accompanied by attendants carrying items that indicate, through the homophony of the words used to describe them, the names of the districts that will next fall to the T’ang. For instance, Lao-tzu first appears with two attendants, one carrying a red whisk 紅拂 and another a towel 巾 (*kjên). These represent Chiang 鋒 (scarlet) and Chin 晉 (*tsjên) districts, respectively. For the fullest accounts of these epiphanies, see Chia Shan-hsiang 賈善翔 (fl. 1086–1101), Yu-lung chuan 猶龍傳 (hy no. 773) 5, pp, 11a–14b, and Hsieh Shou-hao 謝守灝 (1134–1212) Hun-yüan sheng-chi 混元聖記 (hy no. 769) 8, pp. 4a–9a; also, T’ang hui-yao 唐會要 50, p. 865; Tu Kuang-t’ing 杜光庭 (850–933) Li-tai ch’ung-tao chi 歷代崇道記 (hy no. 593), pp. 4a–5a; the inscription erected on the site commissioned by the Hsüan-tsung emperor (r. 712–756) recorded in Lung-chiao shan chi 龍角山紀 (hy no. 966), pp. 1a–4b; and Hsieh Shou-hao, T’ai-shang Lao-chün nien-p’u yao-lüeh 太上老君年譜要略 (hy no. 770), pp. 9b–10a. This event is discussed in Miyakawa, Rikuchōshi, pp. 181–82, and Wechsler, Offerings of Jade and Silk, pp. 70–71.

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apostate Buddhist monk from Shu who was most influential in encouraging the Chou emperor Wu-ti to proscribe Buddhism and force the laicization of monks in 574. While the proscription seems, on the face of it, to have been directed at Taoism as well, both Taoist and Buddhist sources agree that the emperor’s true purpose was to fashion a new state ideology tinged heavily with Taoist principles.67 Further, Buddhist sources are unanimous and persistent in blaming Wei Yüan-sung personally for the catastrophe, which was taken by contemporaries as a sign that the “end of the dharma” 末法 had arrived.68 Given this, coupled with Yang Chien’s related attempts to rebuild the Buddhist establishment during his reign, it seems strange that Li Yüan and his image-makers would have included prophecies ascribed to Wei Yüan-sung. At the very least, it is not hard to imagine how thoroughly mention of this name in connection with the legitimation of a new dynasty must have chilled the hearts of the Buddhist priests who learned of it. I have no verifiable explanation for the invocation of this ill-omened name. While it is perhaps not justified to see Li Yüan’s dependence on Taoist imagery as a religious stance consciously adopted against the Buddhist leanings of the Sui monarchs, there is a certain significance to the fact that he chose to identify himself closely with a religion that portrayed itself as the Chinese answer to an imported faith. This open opposition was to be foregrounded again immediately, through yet another attempt to proscribe Buddhism. The main figure in this new attempt, Fu I 傅奕 (555–639), had also been involved in the Northern Chou debates.69 Moreover, he seems to have been a Li Yüan partisan because he warned Yüan, through the secret presentation of a portent, of Li

67  See esp. John Lagerwey, Wu-shang pi-yao: Somme taoïste du VI e siècle, Publications de l’École française d’Extrême-Orient 124 (Paris: éfeo, 1981), pp. 1–33. Involved in these events were several Taoists who were rewarded for their roles in aiding Li Yüan and who thus are most likely to have been involved in the composition of the T’ai-yuan verses. Especially well-treated were Ch’i Hui 歧暉 (558–630), who changed his name to P’ingting 平定 (“pacified and settled”) in response to Li Yüan’s uprising, and Wang Yüan-chih 王遠知 (d. 635). As might be expected, nothing in the sources—as far as I am aware— implicates either in the creation of apocalyptic portents. 68  On this point, see T’ang Yung-t’ung 湯用彤, Han Wei liang-Chin Nan-pei-ch’ao Fo-chiao shih 漢魏兩普南北朝拂教史 (rpt. Taipei: Shih-hsüeh, 1974), pp. 544–45. It is noteworthy that the founder of the Sui, Yang Chien, was influenced by these events to accomplish a “restoration” of the Buddhist faith. 69  See Lagerwey, Wu-shang pi-yao, p. 18, and, for Fu I’s memorial, see Kuang Hung-ming chi, p. 160a–c.

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Shih-min’s impending coup d’état.70 Fu I’s anti-Buddhist memorials resulted in an imperial decree delimiting the influence of both Taoism and Buddhism— precisely the way the Chou emperor Wu had proceeded with his suppression of Buddhism. On the day following his seizure of power, Li Shih-min forced his father to rescind this decree, which had been in effect for only about a month.71 Due to Li Shih-min’s subsequent revision of the historical record, we are left with little more than the above, admittedly circumstantial, evidence. While we cannot know, then, whether the invocation of the name of Wei Yüan-sung in the T’ai-yüan verses was meant in earnest of things to come, we do know something of Wei’s reputation as predictor of the apocalypse. Despite the fact that none of Wei’s prophecies have survived intact, we know that they remained in existence as late as 690.72 Further, we know from the few fragments cited that the body of Wei’s verse was prophetic, as claimed by T’ang historians. One telling fragment, cited by Tao-hsüan 道宣 (596–667) reads: “From the dragon’s head azure smoke rises, / Ch’ang-an, in one generation, a (funeral) mound.”73 Clearly, there was in the collected verses of Wei Yüan-sung ample purchase for those who wished to show that Ch’ang-an would rise again under the rule of a man named Li. The first petition that Yü Chi and company present to Li Yüan, though it merely introduces the T’ai-yüan verses, is equally informed by apocalyptic images.74 In this case, though, the emphasis is not on recent events, but on the cycles of history, as can be seen in the following summary. Once solely the province of Confucian officials, who attempted to regularize its patterns, the cosmic cycles of heaven are now to be apprehended by other means. Rather than focus on the varying accounts of “pen and tongue,” we should observe the brilliance emanating from the “treasure registers” 寶錄 that indicate the

70   Chiu T’ang-shu 舊唐書 (Peking: Chung-hua, 1975) 79, p. 2716, and Hsin T’ang-shu 107, p. 4059. 71   Chiu T’ang-shu 1, pp. 16–17, and Tzu-chih t’ung-chien 191, p. 6002. This series of events is fully explored in Stanley Weinstein, Buddhism under the T’ang (Cambridge: Cambridge U.P., 1987), pp. 5–11. 72  See Antonino Forte, Political Propaganda and Ideology in China at the End of the Seventh Century: Inquiry into the Nature, Authors, and Function of Tunhuang Document S. 6502, Followed by an Annotated Translation (Naples: Istituto Universitario Orientale, 1976), pp. 204–5, for yet another verse attributed to Wei Yüan-sung and offered to Wu Chao. 73  Tao-hsüan 道宣 (596–667), Chi ku-chin Fo-Tao lun-heng 集古今佛道論衡 (t no. 2104), vol. 52, ch. 2, p. 372a. 74   c yccc 3, pp. 36–37.

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dispensations of heaven.75 Li Yüan is the sage proclaimed by these heavenly documents, filled by the spirits and moving in perfect accord with the cycles. “When the myriad beings encountered mud and soot, he lifted them up to humaneness and long-life; when they had met with the perversities of the hundred-six, he undertook the enterprise of founding [a new dynasty with the speed and forcefulness of] lightning from the clouds,” thus completing a new heaven and earth.76 Reference is then made to the confirmatory auguries and to the evidence of Li Yüan’s name. This is followed by the invocation of Li Yüan’s descent from Lao-tzu, through an allusion to the opening passages of Tao-te ching: “He embodies the extraordinary 非常 Tao and has established extraordinary acts of merit. In fact, he is an extraordinary man who has accomplished extraordinary feats.” This emphasis on the “extraordinary” or “irregular” nature of the Tao, and of the man who embodies it, leads to a statement that runs counter to everything that thinkers from Tsou Yen to Liu Hsin and the Han cosmologists had striven to prove—“The mandate of heaven is not regular; it is granted on the basis of virtue alone.” Thus Li Yüan should, having responded appropriately to the times, not fail to fulfill the role heaven has assigned him. In this memorial, we find mentioned all of the key words that during the Han marked the orderly cycles of time for Chinese thinkers.77 Here, though, they do not signify as they once did. Logically, to assert that the T’ang could inaugurate a new cycle so soon after the Sui one would have to abandon the idea of orderly cyclical progression altogether. That this was not done testifies, I think, to the way in which Taoist apocalyptic writings were able constantly to reassert the notion that the Tao directly intervened in history through extraordinary 非常 persons even in the face of its ultimate unpredictability (also 75  For this term, and much else regarding the Taoist involvement in proclaiming the Mandate of Heaven, see Anna Seidel, “Imperial Treasures,” pp. 291–371; see p. 368: “A Taoist who transmits registers to an emperor does so as a member of and an emissary from the same spiritual hierarchy from which the Son of Heaven himself derives his mandate.” 76  “Mud and soot” 塗炭 describes the sufferings of the common people, through flood and fire, at the end of a dynastic cycle. In Taoism, the term came to be applied to a ritual of penitence during which participants would smear their faces with mud and soot. Lu Hsiu-ching 陸修靜 (406–477) described the goals of the rite as expiation of one’s own and one’s ancestors sins, as well as “to save the people from danger and calamity”; idem, Tung-hsüan ling-pao wu-kan-wen 洞玄靈寶五感文 (hy no. 1268), p. 7b; and, for a study of the rite, Henri Maspero, Taoism and Chinese Religion, Frank A. Kierman, Jr., trans. (Amherst: U. of Massachusetts P., 1981), pp. 381–86. 77  There is mention of the Five Phases, Three Luminaries and Five Thearchs 五帝, the HsiaShang-Chou triad, etc.

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非常). On hearing this suitably Taoist paradox, the descendant of Lao-tzu re-

sponded with a suitable silence. Finally, after hearing the evidence of the T’aiyüan verses, he responded: “The reason I have avoided your entreaties for the third time lies not only in the matter of ceding the mandate; I also feared that you were merely flattering me to my face. Now I deduce that what you say is true.”78 With the assurance of history that the opening of a new era was clear to all, he accepted the mandate. Conclusion

Of course this is not the end of the story. Seidel has shown that the image of Li Hung lived on past the T’ang. Further, some of the same apocalyptic images we have been discussing appear again on the political stage not too many years after the founding of the T’ang in support of the mandate of Wu Chao 武曌. Enough information has been presented, though, to withdraw the suppositionals from one of the statements with which Seidel ended her seminal article. Rather than stating that “Li Yüan may well have felt himself to be the fulfillment of the messianic hopes that we first met with under Wang Mang and that had reechoed throughout the whole Six Dynasties: a Lord Li, emissary of Laotzu, was to be ruler,”79 we might now wish to assert, with equal caution, that Li Yüan, coming to the throne in an age troubled by apocalyptic expectations and yearning for a sage-ruler—perhaps associated with Lao-tzu, perhaps with Maitreya—whose image had been outlined in a number of interrelated religious texts, sought to fulfill those expectations. We still cannot claim to know what Li Yüan himself believed, but we do know how he presented himself to the world.

List of Abbreviations

CYCCC Wen Ta-ya, Ta-T’ang ch’uang-yeh ch’i-chü chu 大唐創業起居注 HY  Weng, ed., Combined Indices to the Authors and Titles of Books in Two Collections of Taoist Literature (Tao-tsang tzu-mu yin-te 道藏子目引得), Harvard-Yenching Sinological Index Ser. 25 t Taishō shinshū daizōkyō 大正新修大蔵經 TT Cheng-t’ung Tao-tsang 正統道藏 78   c yccc 3, p. 38. 79  Seidel, “Image of the Perfect Ruler,” p. 244.

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Taoist Ordination Ranks in the Tun-huang Manuscripts Kristofer M. Schipper Introduction The unification of Taoist traditions that began in the 5th century ad culminated during the T’ang dynasty. The groundwork for this unification was laid by Lu Hsiu-chinga (406–477) in his San-tung ching-mub and his codification of the Heavenly Masters’ liturgy.1 In a different way, works by T’ao Hung-chingd (452–536) such as the Teng-chen yin-chüehe (tt 421), and the Chen-ling wei-yeh chingf 2 equally attempted to provide a global and unified view of the Taoist traditions that were current at those times. The great encyclopedic enterprise of the Wu-shang pi-yaoj (tt 1138) constituted a further step towards the integration of the different traditions into a single system. However, inasmuch as this enterprise aimed at the instauration of a state religion, the Heavenly Masters’ liturgy was excluded.3 The work of collecting and collating of texts that took place at the T’ung-tao kuank under the direction of Wang Yenl (died 604) for the compilation of the Wu-shang pi-yao did continue afterwards during the Sui dynasty. The name of the T’ungtao kuan abbey was changed into Hsüan-tu kuan.m A manuscript discovered at Tun-huang of the Lao-tzu pien-hua chingn has a colophon indicating that it was copied in 612 under the control of a master of the Hsüan-tu kuan in order to be included in the Imperial Library.4 This work must have been part of the general compilation effort undertaken at the abbey. The present example Source: “Taoist Ordination Ranks in the Tun-huang Manuscripts,” in Gert Naundorf et al. (eds.), Religion und Philosophie in Ostasien: Festschrift für Hans Steininger, Wurzburg: Königshausen und Neumann, 1985, 127–48. 1  On the San-tung ching-mu, see Ōfuchi Ninji 1974: 33–56. An example of Lu’s preoccupations with the liturgy of the Heavenly Masters is furnished by the Lu hsien-sheng tao-men k’o-lüehc (tt 1127). 2  The Chen-ling wei-yeh ching has been preserved in the Tao-men ching-fa hsiang-ch’eng tz’uhsüg (tt 1128) 2.16a–20b. A revised version by Lü-ch’iu Fang-yüanh (died 902) is the Tunghsüan ling-pao chen-ling wei-yeh t’ui (tt 167). 3  See Lagerwey 1981: 32 and passim. 4  See Seidel 1969: 59–60 and Ōfuchi Ninji 1978a: 325.

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moreover shows us that at that time the collection and collation of Taoist texts was no longer limited to the scriptures of the Three Caves (San-tung chingo) but did comprise also more ancient works such as the Lao-tzu pien-hua ching. The editors treated this archaic messianic text with much respect, as all ancient and corrupted characters and sentences were copied verbatim. All the Taoist scriptural traditions were thus united to be included in one great canon. As known, the ancient texts were, at that occasion, subdivided into four parts (the so-called ssu-fup). The Wu-shang pi-yao does not yet mention the ssu-fu. But Wang Yen’s catalogue, the San-tung chu-nang,q 5 was divided into seven chapters, which might indicate that it was classified into Seven Parts (ch’i-pus). This hypothesis becomes all the more likely when we remember that this catalogue listed a number of works that fell outside the category of the Scriptures of the Three Caves.6 Several decades later, the patriarch P’an Shih-chengw (585–682), in his dialogues with the Emperor T’ang T’ai-tsung that are included in the Tao-men ching-fa hsiang-ch’eng tz’u-hsü, says: As to the general evolution of the Three Caves becoming Seven Parts: Tung-chen,x Tung-hsüan,y Tung-shenz (are the Three Caves); T’ai-hsüan,aa T’ai-p’ing,ab T’ai-ch’ingac are the Supporting Scriptures (fu-chingad); (…). The Heavenly Masters’ tradition (Cheng-i meng-weiae) is pertinent (t’ungkuanaf) to all. Together, they constitute the Seven Parts.7 The most remarkable feature of this evolution is the fundamental position rendered, in the beginning of the T’ang period, to the liturgy of the Heavenly Masters. The latter is henceforward integrated in the unified Taoist system, of which it forms the basis and also the first step. This is because the classification of Taoist scriptures does not solely correspond to preoccuptions of a bibliographical nature. This classification reflects also the different ordination ranks of the Taoist hierarchy. The Cheng-i (Heavenly Masters) tradition is the first and lowest echelon. From there, the system comprises a great number of stages before reaching the top of the ladder, which is the initiation into the Shang-ch’ingag tradition, corresponding to the Tung-chen scriptures. Ch’en Kuo-fu remarks that:

5  See Wang Yen’s biography in Yün-chi ch’i-ch’ienr [hereafter: yccc] (tt 1032) 85.18b–20a. The source of this text remains unknown at the present time. 6  See Chen Luan,t Hsiao-tao lunu 36. Ap. Kuang Hung-ming chiv (t 2103) 9.152b. 7  (tt 1128) 1.2a.

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The transmission of Registers ( fa-luah), disciplinary rules (chiehai), and scriptures between Taoists follows a determined system of hierarchical grades. To each grade corresponds a certain kind of scripture. This classification does not necessarily follow that of the Taoist Canon, but can be used as material for comparison.8 I do not entirely agree with Ch’en. Certainly, some subdivisions of the sevenpart Canon do not have a very clear status in the classificatory system of ordination ranks. This is, for instance, the case of the T’ai-ch’ing pu.aj But at the same time it cannot be denied that there existed a strong relationship, in T’ang times, between the divisions of the Canon and the ordination ranks of the tao-shih.ak Indeed, there are several sources that show us that, at those times, the ordinations were accompanied by the transmission of scriptures that represented complete divisions of the Canon. For instance, the Ch’uan-shou chingchieh i chu-chüehal contains an ordination ritual corresponding to the ranks of Disciple of the Golden Button (Chin-niu ti-tzuam) and of Master of the Rites of Divine High Mystery (T’ai-shang kao-hsüan fa-shihan).9 This ordination was limited to the transmission of the texts in the T’ai-hsüan puao of the Canon, and, during the ceremony, the most representative works of that division were indeed handed over from the master to the disciple. These works were the Taote chingap and its most important commentaries, as well as several rituals that corresponded to these scriptures. In a similar way, the conferral of the rank of Disciple of the Three August Ones (San-huang ti-tzuaq) implied the transmission of the Tung-shen pu,ar as is shown by the T’ai-shang tung-shen san-huang i.as 10 All this is borne out by the way Chang Wan-fuat (fl. 713) presents the ordination ranks of his times in his Tung-hsüan ling-pao tao-shih shou san-tung chingchieh fa-lu tse-jih li.au 11 A fundamental aspect of the system was already outlined by P’an Shih-cheng: The Heavenly August one of the T’ang (T’ang T’ien-huang,aw i.e. T’aitsung) asked: “Where are found the fruits of the different stages of 8  Ch’en 1963: 7. 9  (tt 1238). This is, to all evidence, an early T’ang text. See Kusuyama 1979: 140–143 and 261–267. 10  (tt 803). This “Ritual of the Three Sovereigns” could well be of the same period as the Ch’uan-shou ching-chieh i chu-chüeh. The transmission ritual is of the Cheng-i type. 11  (tt 1240). “Almanac for the determination of the (auspicious) dates for the transmission of the registers and rule of the scriptures of the Three Caves …” This is an excerpt, made by the author, of his now lost liturgical manual, the San-tung chung-chieh.av

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Taoism?” The Heavenly Master (here P’an Shih-cheng) answered: “(…) In the classification system of our religion, we distinguish between the gradual and the sudden. That implies that when an adept for the first time manifests his intention of becoming a Taoist (Master) (…) he first observes the disciplinary rules. These rules are, for instance, those that the T’ai-hsüan chen-chingax calls the three, five, nine, ten, one hundred and eighty, and three hundred rules”.12 This means that the ordination ranks were not only linked to scriptures but also, as Ch’en already has said, to sets of disciplinary rules. To receive an ordination and the corresponding register13 implied keeping rules. That is what the Ling-pao k’o-chung faay means, when it says: “The (meaning of) Register is to regulate one’s nature, to block one’s mistaken ways”.14 Chang Wan-fu gives a rather complete list of the different sets of rules and their corresponding ordination ranks at the beginning of this Ch’uan-shou san-tung ching-chieh fa-lu lüeh-shuo.az 15 Here follows a simplified rendering of this list: – The Three Refuges Rules (San-kuei chiehba), the Five Rules, the Eight Rules, the Supreme Ten Rules (Wu-shang shih-chiehbb); these are all for laymen, at the beginning of their religious life. When they are children, they are called Novices of the Register (Lu-shengbc). These four sets all come from the Cheng-i Canon.16 – The Rules of the Beginning of Perfection (Ch’u-chen chiehbf); for those that “leave the family” (ch’u-chia;bg i.e. become monks or nuns).17 – The Seventy-two Rules. These are for the Disciples of the Cheng-i tradition, that is, for those that have received the Register of Immortals and Powers (Hsien-ling lubi).18 12   Tao-men ching-fa hsiang-ch’eng tz’u-hsü 1.11a–b. 13  On this topic, see Schipper 1977: 252–290. 14  (tt 1246) 7a. This short treatise also dates from the T’ang. 15  (tt 1241). This “abstract” (lüeh-shuo) is dated 713. It offers a condensed guide to the T’ang ordination system. 16  See Chang Wan-fu’s San-tung chung-chieh wenbd (tt 178) 1.1a–2b (San-kuei chieh) and ibid. 2.3a–4b (wu-chieh, pa-chieh). The Yao-hsiu k’o-i chieh-lü ch’aobe (tt 463) 4.9a, sq. says there existed five different sets of the Ten Rules and quotes three of them, while other texts mention yet different versions. It is therefore difficult to ascertain which set is meant here. 17  See Hsü-huang t’ien-tsun ch’u-chen shih-chieh wenbh (tt 180). 18  This set of rules is now lost.

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– The One-hundred and eighty important Rules. (Pai-pa-shih chieh chunglübj). These are for male and female officials, Masters of the Cheng-i tradition (Cheng-i tao-shih), etc.19 – The Ten Rules of the Heavenly Worthy and the Fourteen Ways of Deportment (T’ien-tsun shih-chieh shih-ssu ch’ih-shen p’inbl); for Disciples of Pure Faith.20 – The Yin and Yang Rules of the Great Purity (T’ai-ch’ing yin-yang chiehbn); for the Disciples of the Register of the Five-thousand Character Text (Wu-ch’ien wen;bo i.e. the Tao-te ching).21 – The Twenty-seven Rules of Hsiang-erh;bp for Masters of the Divine High Mystery.22 – The class of Five, Thirteen, Seven hundred and twenty-seven Rules of the Essentials of the Three Caves of Tung-shen (Tung-shen san-tung yao-yen wuchieh, shih-san chieh, ch’i-pai erh-shih chieh menbr); for Disciples of the Three August Ones.23 – The Hundred-and-twenty Rules; for Disciples of the Inner Teaching of Ascent to Mystery (Sheng-hsüan nei-chiao ti-tzubs).24 – The Rules for obstructing the Six Passions (Pi-sai liu-ch’ing chiehbt); for the first stage of the Ling-pao Alliance (Ling-pao ch’u-mengbu), when the Ring of Spontaneity (Tzu-jan chüanbv) is broken.25 – The great Superior Rules of Sapientia (Chih-hui shang-p’in ta-chiehbw); for the second (middle) stage of the Ling-pao Alliance, when one receives the Catalogue.26 – The One hundred and eighty Rules of the Three Principles (san-yüanby); for the third (great) stage of the Ling-pao Alliance.27 – The Three hundred great Rules for the contemplation of the Body of Sapientia (Chih-hui kuan-shen san-pai ta-chiehca); for Masters of the Shang-ch’ing.28 19  See T’ai-shang lao-chün ching-lübk (tt 786) 2a–20b and yccc 39.1a–14a. 20  The Tung-hsüan ling-pao t’ien-tsun shuo shih-chieh chingbm (tt 459). 21  The T’ai-shang lao-chün ching-lü 1a mentions a T’ai-ch’ing yin-chieh, now lost. 22  These have been preserved in the T’ai-shang lao-chün ching-lü 1a–2a, divided into two sets: the Hsiang-erh chieh and the twenty-seven Tao-te tsun-ching chieh.bq But yccc 38.18a–19a unites them together under the heading Lao-chün erh-shih-ch’i chieh. 23  On these different rules, see San-tung chung-chieh wen 5a–10a. 24  This set appears to be now lost. 25  See San-tung chung-chieh wen 2.1a–2a. 26  See T’ai-shang tung-chen chih-hui shang-p’in ta-chiehbx (tt 177). The “catalogue” is the Ling-pao ching-mu. See Note 73. 27  See Tung-hsüan san-yüan p’in-chieh chingbz (tt 456). 28  See Shang-ch’ing tung-chen chih-hui kuan-shen ta-chieh wencb (tt 1364).

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A number of the sets of rules mentioned by P’an Shih-cheng can also be found in this list. The group of texts that correspond to each of the grades are described afterwards in the work of Chang Wan-fu. Other, and sometimes more complete lists can be found in other T’ang works, such as the Tung-hsüan lingpao san-tung feng-tao k’o-chieh ying-shih.cc 29 After this long preamble, let us turn now to the Tun-huang manuscripts. In which way can these documents confirm or negate the fact that, in T’ang times, there existed an overall system that had integrated all major Taoist traditions? Before attempting to answer this question, we should remark that the Taoist manuscripts discovered at Tun-huang cannot be considered to be a homogeneous collection, such as a given Taoist abbey or a Taoist Master might have possessed at those times. In the predominantly Buddhist environment of the Ch’ien-fo tung’s mass of abandoned manuscripts, the Taoist texts must be a fortuitous addition, a random sampling, and this even more so when we remember the fact that many of them were not even written at Tun-huang, but, like the Lao-tzu pien-hua ching mentioned above, at all kinds of different places. Nevertheless it is possible to perceive in the Tun-huang manuscripts clear traces of the liturgical organisation as it has been described by Chang Wan-fu and others. In order to demonstrate this, I shall now discuss one by one the different stages of the hierarchy of ordination ranks. I

The Fundamental Cheng-i Registers

From the times of the Liu-Sung dynasty (420–479) on, many texts give information on the first stage of initiation, which is the basic ordination confered to children and laymen according to the Cheng-i canon. There is agreement between the sources as to the general outline of the system. Children received their first religious consecration at the age of seven sui. They were then called Keng-ling.cd 30 Then, at an interval of several years, they received their first Registers, those of one, three and ten generals (T’ung-tzu i, san, shih, chiangchün luce). At the age of puberty, they were initiated to the Register of the seventy-five generals. Those who posessed this Register were called Novices of the Register (Lu-sheng).31 At the moment of marriage, young people of 29  (tt 1125) 4.4b–5.2b. 30  See Yao-hsiu k’o-i chieh-lü ch’ao 10.5b. The ordination system of the Heavenly masters has been studied by Ch’en 1963: 308–369. 31  Ibid. 10.5b–6b. The San-tung feng-tao k’o-chieh ying-shih 4.5b gives the title of lu-sheng to children and the title of nan-kuan (nü-kuancf) to lay adults.

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both sexes matched and obtained together, through the union of their respective Registers, the One-hundred and fifty generals’ Registers. The deities of the Registers were also sexually differentiated. The High Immortals (shanghsiencg) were male; the High Powers (shang-lingch) were female. Chang Wan-fu explains this, by saying: The Register of seventy-five generals with Immortal Agents (Hsien-kuan ch’i-shih-wu chiang-chün luci) is Yang and belongs to men; The same with Power Agents (ling-kuancj) is Yin and belongs to women. When men and women holding these Registers unite, this (their Register) is then called the One-hundred and fifty generals’ Register.32 This explains the expression „Register of Immortals and Powers“, generally used for this stage. Among the texts that describe this system, the Yao-hsiu k’o-i chieh-lü ch’ao33 and the Ling-pao k’o-chung fa34 are the most explicit. Adepts that had passed this initiation were called male and female officers (nan-kuan, nü-kuan). Among the Tun-huang manuscripts, the most important document related to this first stage of Taoist initiation is the MS Stein 203.35 This is a copy of the T’ang period of a text of the Six Dynasties. Ōfuchi classifies it among texts with unknown titles (Shih-t’i tao-chingck). As a matter of fact, the title is given in the middle of the manuscript (line 52) as “Ritual for the transmission of the Register of Immortals and Powers” (Tu hsien-ling lu icl). The beginning of the manuscript is lacking, but the text is sufficiently clear to be understandable throughout. The first part (lines 1 to 20) concerns the ritual for the presentation of a memorial (chang-piaocm), the night before the day of the ordination. This memorial announces that the ceremony is going to take place, and introduces the disciple to the gods that have assembled in the Pure Room (chingcn). The next morning the ritual of transmission takes place. The manuscript describes how the disciple is sprinkled with water, and how the Master then hands him or her the Register. This document was written on a long piece of fabric, to be wrapped around the waist. The ceremony ends with a ritual of the Inspection of Soldiers (yüeh-pingco). This means that the deities of the Register are called up vocally and mentally and that they are presented with offerings.

32   Ch’uan-shou san-tung ching-chieh fa-lu lüeh-shuo 1.3b. 33  Op. cit. 10.5b 34  Op. cit. 7a–8b. 35  Ōfuchi Ninji 1978b: 880–883.

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The manuscript has an appendix with practical instructions for the use and the transmission of Cheng-i Registers. This appendix has first a “List for determining the names” (lu ming icp), that is: the denominations of energies (ch’i) dominating at a given time and that therefore are linked to the birthtime of the disciple. This in turn allows for the determination of the dominating energy in the body, which are related to the deities of the Register. The text we have here is almost identical with that of the Ling-pao k’o-chung fa.36 Finally, the manuscript gives us a great number of formularies that are models for attestations of different transmissions (chuangcq). These attestations which concern the Registers of ten, seventy-five, and one-hundred and fifty generals, have to be signed by guarantors (pao-chücr). Each time, the document states clearly that the receiver has already obtained the previous degree of initiation (for instance: the children’s Register of one general for those who obtain the Ten Generals’ one, etc.). Certain models of attestations concern the loss of a Register and the request for a replacement, as well as the abolition of sins or the healing of sickness. All this is very close to the kind of documents we find in the Tao-tsang in the Cbeng-i fa-wen t’ai-shang wai-lu i.cs 37 The master who conducts the ceremonies which are described in this manuscript has also an ordination title. It is given as “Libationer of this-andthis Diocese of the Heavenly Master (embodying) the Orthodox One Peaceful Energy of the Capital of Supreme Mystery” (T’ai hsüan-tu cheng-i p’ing-ch’i hsi T’ien-shih mou chih chi-chiuct). This title is followed by the words “the male servant” or “the female servant” such-and such (ch’en, ch’ieh, moucu). The officiating Master could therefore be a man as well as a woman. The diocese (chih) that is mentioned here is not so much one of the forty-four that are given by the San-tung chu-nang,38 but one of the series of the twenty-four original dioceses classified according to their cosmological correspondances and attributed to the adepts in relationship with their birthdate.39 As to the expression at the beginning of the title: “The Capital of Supreme Mystery”, it refers to the highest governing body of the heavens, the seat of Lao-chün.40 From this capital the

36  Op. cit. 5a. 37  (tt 1243). This is probably a text from the Six Dynasties period. 38  (tt 1139) 7.1a–15a. 39  Ibid. 7.1a–b. The dioceses are attributed in accordance with the cycle of the Twenty-eight Mansions (erh-shih-pa hsiucv). See also Yao-hsiu k’o-i chieh-lü ch’ao 10.3b. 40  See T’ai-shang tung-hsüan ling-pao san-yüan p’in-chieh kung-te ch’ing-chung chingcw (tt 456).

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different codes of law have been edicted, such as the Nü-ch’ing kuei-lü,cx etc.41 For unknown reasons, this epithet of “T’ai hsüan-tu” appears at the beginning of Cheng-i ordination titles from T’ang time on.42 The ordination title of the master as given here corresponded to the latter’s Diocesian Register (chih-luda), that is, his investiture as leader of one of the dioceses. The masters were selected from those disciples that had obtained the One-hundred and fifty generals’ Register. The ranks of the masters also varied slightly according to their liturgical function. But this point may be left undiscussed here. Thanks to the present manuscript, we can see that the fundamental liturgical organisation of the Heavenly Masters’ Church continued to be present in Tun-huang in the same way as it was elsewhere in the T’ang empire. II

The Other Cheng-i Registers

As indicated by Chang Wan-fu, there existed, on top of the basic initiations, a great number of other Registers. He remarks on their subject, that: As to the twenty-four kinds and thirty-six Registers, I have given here the general outline. As to the other hundred-odd stages, they all have scriptures on which they are based, but I do not give them all here.43 These supplementary Registers probably corresponded to different functions. For some, we have to do with lu that are related to the liturgical function (k’odb) of the master, such as the Yüan-ming ch’ih-ludc that entitles the recipient to call himself Real Man of Orginal Destiny (Yüan-ming chen-jendd). Other Registers, however, appear to have simply been prophylactic talismans. They are no doubt Registers of the latter kind to which Lu Hsiu-ching aludes when he writes, in his Lu hsien-sheng tao-men k’o-lüeh, that in his times there were those whose purpose in life was “to carry on themselves as many Registers as possible!”44 Among the Registers mentioned by Chang Wan-fu, there is one that has not been preserved as such in the Tao-tsang, but which on the contrary can be identified thanks to the Tun-huang manuscripts. This is the Register of the Purple Palace. The MS Pelliot 2457, which has a colophon dated 712, contains a 41  (tt 790) 3.1a: “Nü-ch’ing hsüan-tu kuei-lü”, and T’ai-chen yü-ti ssu-chi ming-k’o chingcy (tt 184) 1.2a (and passim): “Hsüan-tu tso-yu nü-ch’ing lü-wen”.cz 42  See San-tung feng-tao k’o-chieh ying-shih 4.6b. 43   Ch’uan-shou san-tung ching-chieh fa-lu lüeh-shuo 1.3b–4a. 44  Op. cit. 7a.

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Ritual for the Inspection of the Purple Register (Yüeh tzu-lu ide).45 This must be the Purple Palace Register, that occupied a prominent place among the supplementary ordinations of Taoist masters of the T’ang. A work of that period, the Cheng-i wei-i chingdf remarks that: … afterwards one has to go to a master in order to receive the Great Register of the Purple Palace. Those who have not received this, in case they wish to (perform ritual in order to) avert calamities for the country or to regulate the course (of the stars) in heaven, the Heavenly officers will not obey them. Those that have received it and practice it diligently, to them Heaven will answer their will. Whatever they seek or wish will be carried out by the heavenly beings. They will obtain the Tao and mount up to Heaven, the Star Officers will come down to fetch them, the gates of heaven will swing open, and Demon Kings will enlist in their service.46 Taoists that obtained Registers had to renew periodically the alliance with the deities that were inherent to those documents. These deities were, at that occasion, invoked and inspected. This was the purpose of the yüeh-ludg ritual. After the inspection, the deities received offerings. This ritual was called chiaolu.dh For the fundamental Registers, one had to do this at least three times a year, on the days of the Three Principles (san-yüan; i.e.: the 16th days of the first, seventh and tenth months). On the anniversary of the transmission, one had equally to do a chiao-lu. The MS Pelliot 2457 has preserved a fragment of the ritual of the chiao offering for the Purple Palace Register. But, because we have to do here with a supplementary Register of a higher level than those of the laymen, a note specifies that the offering of alliance was only to be made once in three years. III

The “Ten Rules of the Heavenly Worthy and the Fourteen Ways of Deportment” (T’ien-tsun shih-chieh shih-ssu ch’ih-shen p’in)

In the list of Chang Wan-fu cited above, we have seen that, after the Cheng-i Registers there comes the grade of Disciple of Pure Faith (Ch’ing-hsin ti-tzudi) which corresponds to the observance of the Ten Rules of the Heavenly Worthy and the Fourteen Ways of Deportment. The title of Disciple of Pure Faith belongs to Buddhism a well as to Taoism. For the latter, this title is specifically 45  Ōfuchi Ninji 1978a: 329; 1978b: 713. 46  (tt 791) 3a.

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used in connectionn with the Ling-pao tradition and it is mentioned in the earliest texts of that tradition at the beginning of the 5th century ad. But the text of the Shih-chieh shih-ssu ch’ih-shen p’in corresponds to the Tung-hsüan ling-pao t’ien-tsun shuo shih-chieh ching in the Ming Canon,47 and here we have to do with a T’ang work, which begins like this: The Heavenly Worthy said: “You men and woman of good disposition (shan nan-tzu, shan nü-jendj), if you are able to manifest your intention (to attain) the Spontaneous Tao, and enter into the Gate of the Law, and receive the Ten Rules of the Heavenly Worthy and the Fourteen Ways of Deportment, then you will be Disciples of Pure Faith of the great Tao. (…). And when you, from then on make progress and avoid being lax, then you will transcend the Three Worlds and become a Real man of Highest Purity (Shang-ch’ing chen-jendk).” The ordination for the rank of Ch’ing-hsin ti-tzu through the transmission and conferral of the Shih-chieh shih-ssu ch’ih-shen p’in was indeed very common during the T’ang. The Tun-huang manuscripts not only have preserved the above-mentioned scripture (MS Stein 6454) but also a number of texts of oaths (meng-wendl), these being attestations of the regular transmission from master to disciple. The six meng-wen (or chuang) found at Tun-huang and listed below date from the years between 709 and 757. They were all written in Tun-huang, except one that comes from Yung-choudm in Shansi.48 The text of the attestation is virtually the same in all instances.49 It first gives the date, the name, title, place of birth and the age of the disciple. Then it expresses the religious feeling of the latter, and explains why he seeks ordination. Then follow the name, titles and place of origin of the Master. The document ends with a number of pious vows. Here follows a short analysis of the six documents: (1) Pelliot 2347. Dated 709. For the female officer (nü-kuan), Disciple of Pure Faith T’ang Chen-chiehdn (i.e.: “Rules of the Perfect”) aged seventeen, living at the Ch’ung-hsü kuando in Tun-huang. Ordination conferred by the Master of the Northern Peak Yen Lü-mingdp (no place of origin given).

47  (tt 459). 48  Reproduced in Ōfuchi Ninji 1978b: 198–201. 49  These meng-wen have been studied by Ōfuchi 1964: 385.

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(2) Pelliot 3417. Dated 711. For the male disciple (nan-shengdq), Disciple of Pure Faith Ching-hsiendr (i.e.: “Luminous Immortal”; the surname is lacking), aged 27. Living at Lo-yang county in Yung-chou (Shansi). Ordination conferred by the San-tung fa-shihds (Master of the Three Caves), Master of the Central Peak Changdt (personal name missing), from the Tung-ming kuandu in Ch’ang-an county, Yung-chou. (3) Pelliot 2350. Dated 714. For the male officer (nan-kuan), Disciple of Pure Faith Li Wu-shangdv (i.e.: “Supreme”), aged 27. From a village in the circumscription of Tun-huang. Ordination conferred by the San-tung fa-shih, Master of the Central Peak Chang Jen-sui,dw from another village in Tun-huang. (4) Chen-sung t’ang manuscript, dated 714. For the female officer (nükuan), Disciple of Pure Faith Yin Chih-ch’ingdx (i.e.: “Minding Pureness”), aged 11. From a village in the vicinity of Tun-huang. Ordination conferred by Master Chang Jen-sui (see above, no. 3). (5) Stein 6454, dated 751. For the male disciple (nan-sheng), Disciple of Pure Faith Chang Hsüan-piendy (i.e.: “Discussion on Mystery”), aged 27. From the K’ai-yüan kuandz in Tun-huang. Ordination given by the Santung fa-shih, Master of the Central Peak Ma Yu-yüehea (no place of origin given). (6) Pelliot 3770, dated 757. For the male disciple, Disciple of Pure Faith Wang Yü-cheneb (“Jade Perfected”), aged 16. From a village of the Tunhuang circumscription. Ordination given by the San-tung fa-shih, Master of the Central Peak So Ch’ung-shu,ec from another Tun-huang village. These documents elicit a few comments. The titles of nan-kuan and nü-kuan, or nan-sheng and nü-sheng indicate that the disciples ordained as Ch’ing-hsin ti-tzu had already received, at an earlier stage, the basic Cheng-i Registers. The situation we find here is therefore in keeping with the hierarchy of grades as outlined by Chang Wan-fu, e.a. The ordination of children aged 11 or 16 in this grade may seem surprising; however, exceptions of this kind are foreseen in the texts.50 Two of the ordinees live in abbeys. In these cases, the place of origin of the master is not given. One may therefore suppose that these masters were living in the same abbey as the disciples. As to those disciples that did not live in a kuan, they had to find their master elsewhere, either in an abbey or in their private dwelling. This indicates that not all ordinees, and equally not all San-tung fa-shih, had entered into monastic life (ch’u-chia), but that a 50  See Yao-hsiu k’o-i chieh-lü ch’ao 10.5b–6b.

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good number of them lived among the people. One could therefore practice the Ling-pao liturgy in T’ang times without being a monk or a nun and while living at home. Moreover, as Ōfuchi has remarked already, the two ordinations of 714 took place the same day, by the same master. This means that boys and girls were ordained together, in the same ordination ritual. Another striking feature is that apparently all disciples have received a religious name ( fa-minged). Inasmuch as the Cheng-i canon did not, at those times, foresee such a change of name, this must therefore be related to the ordination as Disciple of Pure Faith. Thus, in spite of the fact that not all disciples lived in a kuan, the transmission of the Shih-chieh shih-ssu ch’ih-shen p’in did mark an important step towards the integration into a religious community. The ordination titles of the masters: San-tung fa-shih and “Master of suchand-such Peak” (Mou-yüeh hsien-shengee) will be examined hereunder. IV

The Transmission of the Tao-te ching

Following Chang Wan-fu, after the transmission of the Shih-chieh shih-ssu ch’ih-shen p’in, there comes the initiation of the Tao-te ching. In the list cited above, this stage is divided into two parts, which correspond respectively to the titles of Disciple of the Register of the Five-thousand Character Text (stage 5) and of Master of the Divine High Mystery (stage 6). Let us first examine the prior one. The Register of the Five-thousand Character Text does not longer exist, but it is mentioned in Wu-shang pi-yao 37.51 In this ritual, we find the text of a long oath (meng-wen) that is given there as an excerpt from the Ritual for the Transmission of the Register (Ch’uan-shou wu-ch’ien lu ieg). Exactly the same meng-wen have been preserved among the Tun-huang manuscripts. A critical comparison between these documents and the Wu-shang pi-yao version has already been made by Professor Ōfuchi.52 The document starts out with a short account of the story of the first transmission of the Tao-te ching:

51  This chapter contains the ritual for the transmission of the Five-thousand Character Book (Shou Tao-te wu-ch’ien wen ief) as part of the new liturgical canon of the Chou dynasty (see ibid. 35.1a). 52  Ōfuchi Ninji 1964: 385.

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As is known, when Lao Tzu was about to cross the Hsien-ku pass, the chia-tzu day of the seventh moon of the first year of the Wu-chi era … Then there is an explanation on the meaning of the book: When the Tao of Life enters the belly, all the luminous spirits will be present [and preserved]. The meng-wen ends with the words: Today, according to the Code of Alliance, offering pledges and with a resolute mind, I have come to the San-tung fa-shih, Master of such-andsuch Peak, Sir so-and-so, to ask for the transmission of the Five Thousand Character Text, (promising to) practice (its teachings) and to honour it with offerings, considering it forever as a personal treasure, cutting gold confirming the oath. If I do not keep the code and go against the Alliance, that I may be thrown in the dark dungeons of the Eternal Night, without any protest. Four of these meng-wen have been identified, to this day, among the Tun-huang manuscripts. Here follows a short analysis: (1) Pelliot 2347. Dated 709. For the female officer, Disciple of Pure Faith T’ang Chen-chieh, etc. (same date as for the meng-wen of the Shihchieh shih-ssu ch’ih-shen p’in of the same MS (see above, no. 1). (2) Pelliot 2350. Dated 714. For the male officer, Disciple of Pure Faith Li Wu-chi (rest identical with the meng-wen of the Shih-chieh shih-ssu ch’ih-shen p’in. Of the same manuscript (see list no. 3). (3) Pelliot 2417. Dated 751. For the male disciple, Disciple of Pure Faith So Hsi-yüeh,eh aged 31. From the Shen-ch’üan kuanei at Tun-huang. Ordination given by the San-tung fa-shih, Master of the Central Peak Ma Yu-yüeh (place of origin not mentioned). (4) Pelliot 2735. Dated 757. For the Disciple of Pure Faith Wu Tzuyang,ej aged 17. From a village in the circumscription of Tun-huang. Ordination given by the Master of the Central Peak Chang Hsien-iek (place of origin not given).53

53  The texts of the foregoing meng-wen are also studied by Ōfuchi Ninji 1978a: 109, 192, 200.

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What first strikes us is the close relationship between the transmission of the Shih-chieh shih-ssu ch’ih-shen p’in and that of the Tao-te ching. For the two disciples T’ang Chen-chieh and Li Wu-shang, these ordinations took place at the same day, by the same master, and the respective meng-wen were written on the same piece of paper. We must therefore accept the fact that both ordinations were linked. This seems to be at variance with the list of Chang Wan-fu but does correspond to the indications given in another source, the Tunghsüan ling-pao san-tung feng-tao k’o-chieh ying-shih.54 Here, after a passage dealing with the Cheng-i ordinations, we find the following paragraph: Register of the Golden Button and black silk (braid) of Lao Tzu, and the Ten Rules (of the Heavenly Worthy) and the Fourteen Ways of Deportment. Those who receive these are called Disciples of the Golden Button and Black Silk Braid of Lao Tzu. The name of Register of the Golden Button is synonymous with Register of the Five Thousand Character Text. Even Chang Wan-fu uses the one for the other.55 The appellation finds its origin in the fact that, among the pledges to be brought in by the disciple, a button of gold and a braid of black silk had a prominent place. The Ch’uan-shou ching-chieh i chu-chüeh says in this respect: Here follow the things that are necessary for the transmission: a braid of black silk made out of eight strands, which together have the length of nine feet. A gold button with a diameter of one inch. A note to this passage adds: If you do not have (a button of) one inch, you may use a common ring, of any size. It must however be made of real gold.56 As a token of the sworn alliance, this button or ring was cut into halves, and divided between the Master and the disciple. This is the meaning of the sentence of the meng-wen that says: “cutting gold confirming the oath.” In order to cut, one needed a special knife which was part of the offerings to be provided

54  Op. cit. 4.6b. 55   Tung-hsüan ling-pao tao-shih shou san-tung ching-chieh fa-lu tse-jih li 4b. 56  Op. cit. 10b.

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for by the disciple. Chang Wan-fu has written a paragraph on the significance of this rite.57 Adepts that had received the Tao-te ching were therefore often called Disciples of the Golden Button (Chin-niu ti-tzu). This was the little ordination, linked to the transmission of the book. Taoists who had reached this stage were still at the beginning of their career. Chang Wan-fu confirms this point by criticizing those Taoists of his times that “having received the Tao-te (ching) and the Ten Rules, boastfully claim their excellence by saying: ‘I have received from my Master all Taoist methods that exist!’”58 The second stage of the ordination linked to the Tao-te ching is different from the first one, as, from here one, we enter into the level corresponding to the rank of “Master of the Rites” ( fa-shihel). The title of the adepts that obtain this second stage of ordination is “Master of the Rites of the Divine Way and its Power” (T’ai-shang Tao-te fa-shihem) or Master of the Divine High Mystery. Chang Wan-fu specifies that this rank was linked to the acceptance of the “Twenty-seven Rules of Hsiang-erh” (Hsiang-erh erh-shih-ch’i chiehen), but in reality the number of transmitted texts at this occasion is far greater. The Tunghsüan ling-pao san-tung feng-tao k’o-chieh ying-shih tells us in this respect that the ordinee should receive: – Lao Tzu’s Tao-te ching, in two chüan. – The Ho-shang kungeo commentary, in two chüan. – The Audience Ritual of the Five Thousand Character Text, with miscelaneous explanations. – The Inner Biography of the Guardian of the Pass. – The text of the Rules.59 A similar and even more complete list is given by the Ch’üan-shou ching-chieh i chu-chüeh.60 This list includes the Hsiang-erh commentary to the Tao-te ching, a manuscript fragment of which has been discovered at Tun-huang (MS Stein 6825). This may indicate that the corresponding grade of Master of Divine High Mystery did indeed exist at Tun-huang. We have to recall once more that, at this stage, the ordination was linked not only to the transferral of a Register and a set of disciplinary rules, but also implied the transmission, first of one book and later of a whole set of books, iden57   Ch’uan-shou san-tung ching-chieh fa-lu lüeh-shuo 2.11b. 58   Tung-hsüan ling-pao tao-shih shou san-tung ching-chieh fa-lu tse-jih li 7b. 59  Op. cit. 4.7a 60  Op. cit. 4b–5a.

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1821

tified, in the present case, with the Tung-hsüan division of the T’ang Canon. As we shall see, from this level upwards, all ordinations are related to groups of texts, such as the Scripture of the Spells of the Gods of the Communication with the Abyss (Tung-yüan shen-chou chingep), the Scripture of the Ascent to Mystery (Sheng-hsüan chingeq), the Tung-shen Division, the Ling-pao, and Shang-ch’ing canons … Those who possess these texts are fa-shih,61 whereas the masters of the Cheng-i tradition continue to be called, even in T’ang times, Libationers (chi-chiues) or Inspectors of Merits (tu-kunget), with the additional title, corresponding to the higher Registers, of Real Man of Original Destiny (Yüan-ming chen-jen). Thus, from the transmission of the texts of the T’ai-hsüan division upwards, the Taoists received the title of fa-shih, equally together with an additional title of “Master of such-and-such a Peak”.62 On the subject of this additional title, the Tao-tien lunev explains: The Scripture of the (black) ink Register on (Vermilion) Cinnabar Tablets of the Most High says: Those who receive a rank that goes with a title from the silk scrolls of the Real One or the Great One,63 are entitled to the honour of being called “Master” (hsien-shengex). If the year of this birth corresponds to the mansions of the East, he must be invested with the title of Master of the Eastern Peak (Tung-yüeh hsien-shengey). If born in a year corresponding to the Southern mansions, he becomes Master of the Southern Peak,64 and so on. Henceforward, at all successive ordinations, the fa-shih will continue to have this function (chih-weiez) of Master of such-and-such a Peak, and this appellation is often considered more important than the ordination rank. As we have seen in the meng-wen of the MS Pelliot 2735 and 2347, the dignitaries that give the ordinations can be simply identified as Master of the Central or of the Northern Peak.

61  This acceptance of the title fa-shih changes greatly from Sung times on. In the I-chien chih,er this title has become a general term for non-ordained priests of popular cults and even for spirit-mediums. See my “Vernacular and Classical Rituals in Taoism”, forthcoming in the Journal of Asian Studies. 62  Compare Shou-lu tz’u-ti fa-hsin ieu (tt 1244) 6a. 63  The use of these two terms in this context may well refer to the nomenclature of the gods in the Cheng-i fa-wen fa-lu pu iew (tt 1242). 64  (tt 1130) 2.4b.

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The titles of Master of the Divine High Mystery (or of the Divine Tao and its Power) appear to have been rarely used in liturgical practice. For instance, in the Ch’uan-shou ching-chieh i chu-chüeh, which is entirely devoted to the rites of transmission of the Tao-te ching, this title only appears once.65 In this instance, it is given to the Master who initiates (tu-shihfa), in the memorial that the disciple adresses to him. But when this same Master in turn presents a memorial to the Heavens in order to announce the ordination, he calls himself: “San-tung fa-shih, Master of such-and-such a Peak, performing a ritual of the Five Thousand Character Text, the Tao-te Ching”.66 This form of procedure is explained in a long commentary, which helps us to understand the way ordination titles were used during the T’ang period: The Three August Ones [i.e.: their scriptures] are called Tung-shen, the Ling-pao are called Tung-hsüan and the Shang-ch’ing are called Tungchen. Those who have received (all) these are named San-tung. Those who have not yet obtained them are just named Master of the Tao and its Power (Tao-te fa-shih). After having obtained this Tao, if the latter in his capacity of master initiates a sufficient number of disciples, then his (superior) master may present a memorial in order to report the former’s merit, and thus make him “Master of the Rites” (of the San-tung). The “patron of salvation” (chi-chufb, i.e.: the ordinee for whose benefit the service is done) is only called “Disciple of the Three Treasures” (Sanpao ti-tzufc), and cannot use the title of “Master of the Rites” ( fa-shih). If he has received all the scriptures of the Three Caves, then (to the title of San-tung fa-shih) one adds: “Performing a ritual of the Five-housand Character text” ( feng-hsing Wu-ch’ien wen shihfd). Those who have not yet received (those scriptures) cannot use this appellation. In case an adept has obtained (the books of) Lao-chün,fe or one Cave, two Caves and until the moment he has got all three, he names himself “Master of the Divine Way and its Power, performing such-and-such ritual of the Three Caves” (T’ai-shang Tao-te fa-shih feng-hsing San-tung mou shihff).67 From the foregoing, we may see that there are three distinct possibilities:

65  Op. cit. 13b. 66  Op. cit. 14b. 67  Op. cit. 15a.

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1823

(1) Having received the Tao-te ching and the other texts of the T’ai-hsüan pu, one obtains the title of fa-shih, but only in order to transmit, in turn, the same ordination to others. When a sufficient number of disciples have been thus ordained, a promotion to a higher level can be envisaged. At the time of that promotion, the ordinee cannot be called fa-shih but only San-pao ti-tzu (compare Shou-lu tz’u-ti fa-hsin i 6a). (2) All those that have not yet attained the degree of San-tung fa-shih, when doing rituals (apart from initiating disciples in their own Register) must say: “the master of the Tao and its Power, performing such-and-such a ritual of the Three Caves”, that is, a ritual above their grade. (3) The Master who has received full ordination in the Three Caves calls himself, in case of an ordination into a lower echeleon than his own: “Santung fa-shih, performing such-and-such ritual (of an inferior degree).” This rather complicated procedure shows us that the different degrees were not only obtained by presenting the prescribed offerings and pledges, but that one had to deserve them too. Grade and ritual activity were not necessarily linked. The title the Taoists used in their ritual activity depended not only on their status in the hierarchy, but also on the nature of the ritual. The result of this practice is the fact that we often find, in the Tao-tsang as well as in the Tun-huang manuscripts, hybrid titles. For instance, in the MS Pelliot 2394 which contains a “Ritual for the Inspection of All the Registers” (Yüeh chunglu ifg), the title of the officiating Master is: “Disciple of the Great Cave of the Three Luminaries, performing the star-dance of Three and Five, belonging to such-and-such Diocese and Energy of the Hevenly Master”. This title indicates that the officiating person is a Master of the highest degree (Ta-tung san-ching ti-tzufh; see below), but performing a ritual of the Heavenly Masters’ tradition, in this case a rite of Inspecting the Register (Yüeh-lu i).68 V

“All the Registers”

As we have already seen in several instances, all ordinations from that of the Tao-te ching upwards implied the transmission of whole groups of texts. There were many such groups, not only these of the Three Caves, but also others which Chang Wan-fu and his colleages made enter into the general system. 68  Ōfuchi Ninji 1978b: 715–717. The ordination title of the officiating master (Hsi T’ien-shih mou chih-ch’i san-wu pu-kang ta-tung san-ching ti-tzufi) is on line 39.

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This system is the same throughout, but we do find small differences from one source to another. These differences may be due to the fact that certain scriptural canons, such as the Ling-pao and the Shang-ch’ing, were perfectly constituted, whereas others were less well established. An example of the latter case are the scriptures of the Three August Ones (San-huang wenfj), or those placed in the general category of the Five Talismans (Wu-fufk).69 There were, in T’ang times, also a number of new texts that did not belong to the ancient traditions and fell therefore ouside the system, such as, for instance, the Register of the Seven Stars (Ch’i-hsing lufn)70 or the Precious Register of the River Chart (Hot’u pao-lufo).71 The place that these new texts had to occupy in the system was subject to different interpretations. Inside of the scope of the present article, it is not possible to pursue the problem any further. Referring to the different repertoires dating from T’ang times and which have been cited in this article, one can reconstruct the entire system without much difficulty. The highest grade, after obtaining of the scriptures of the Shang-ch’ing canon, was that of San-tung fa-shih, coupled with the epithet of Ta-tung san-ching ti-tzu, that is: “Disciple of the Great Cave of the Three Luminaries”.72 All the groups of texts that formed part of the unified system in T’ang times have been found, in more or less complete forms, at Tun-huang. The presence of a certain number of catalogues pertaining to those single groups (and not of the complete Tao-tsang)73 are a further indication that the corresponding ordinations did at those times occur at Tun-huang. Inasmuch as we have found a certain number of San-tung fa-shih that were active at Tun-huang during the first half of the 8th century, we may suppose that all the relevant groups of books existed. This fact is partially confirmed by the manuscript of the “Ritual for Inspection of all the Registers” (Pelliot 2394) already mentioned. This ritual had to be executed three times a year, on the san-huifu days, as well as an other occasions, in order to review the deities of all the Registers in the possession of a Disciple of the Great Cave of the Three Luminaries. Just as the Ritual for 69  “Five Talismans”; also called Wu-fafl (“Five Methods”). This group comprises a variety of ancient talismans such as the Image of the Real Form of the Five Peaks, Wu-yüeh chenhsing t’u.fm See Tung-hsüan ling-pao tao-shih shou san-tung ching-chieh fa-lu tse-jih li 5a–b. 70  For the cult of the Dipper. 71  See Tung-hsüan ling-pao tao-shih … 5b. 72  See Shou-lu tz’u-ti fa-hsin i 7a. 73  Such as the Ling-pao ching-mufp (P. 2861 and P. 2256), the Shang-ch’ing ching-mufq (P. 2337, as part of the San-tung feng-tao k’o-chieh i-fanfr) and the T’ai-p’ing pufs containing the table of contents of the T’ai-p’ing chingft (S. 4226).

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Taoist Ordination Ranks in the Tun-huang Manuscripts

1825

the Transmission of the Register of Immortals and Powers (Tu hsien-ling lu i; Stein 203) examined above, here also the text is composed not only of the said ritual, but also of an appendix that gives practical instructions and relevant information. At the beginning of the appendix, there is a list of all the Registers concerned. This list is incomplete, inasmuch as not all titles which we can find in the text of the ritual are mentioned. Unfortunately, parts of the manuscript are missing. A close examination of all the titles of lu mentioned in the manuscript, as well as other details, especially the mention of an “altar in the open air” (lu-t’anfv) yields the conclusion that the system as it is presented here is rather close to that laid down in the Chiao san-tung chen-wen wu-fa cheng-i meng-wei lu li-ch’eng ifw by Chang Wan-fu,74 a periodical offering for the alliance with the gods of the Registers for all stages of ordinations of the unified Taoist traditions of the T’ang period. Bibliography Ch’en, Kuo-fu. 1963. Tao-tsang yüan-liu k’ao. 2nd edition. Shanghai. Kusuyama, Haruki. 1979. Rōshi densetsu no kenkyū. Tokyo. Lagerwey, John. 1981. Wu-shang pi-yao. Somme taoiste du VI e siècle. efeo, Paris. Ōfuchi, Ninji. 1964. Dōkyō-shi no kenkyū. Okayama. Ōfuchi, Ninji. 1974. “On Ku Ling-pao-ching”, Acta Asiatica 27, 33–56. Ōfuchi, Ninji. 1978a. Tonkō Dōkyō. Mokuroku-hen. Tokyo. Ōfuchi, Ninji. 1978b. Tonkō Dōkyō. Zuroku-hen. Tokyo. Schipper, Kristofer. 1977. “Tōkō no shōkunō no kansuru ni, san kōsatsu”. Kōkyō no zōhōteki kenkyū. Sakai Tadao, ed. Tokyo. Seidel, Anna. 1969. La divinisation de Lao-tseu sous les Han. efeo, Paris. van der Loon, Piet. 1984. Taoist Books in the Libraries of the Sung Period. London.

74  (tt 1212).

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1826 a 陸修靜 b 三洞經目 c 陸先生道門科 略 d 陶弘景 e 登真隠訣 f 真靈位業經 g 道門經法相承次序 h 閭丘方遠 i 洞玄靈寶真靈位業圖 j 焦上秘要 k 通道觀 l 王延 m 玄都觀 n 老子變化經 o 三洞經 p 四輔 q 三洞珠囊 r 雲笈七籤 s 七部 t 甄鸞 u 癸道論 v 廣弘明集 w 潘師正 x 洞真 y 洞玄 z 洞神 aa 太玄 ab 太平 ac 太清 ad 輔經 ae 正一盟烕 af 通貫 ag 上清 ah 法籙 ai 戒（誡） aj 太清部 ak 道士 al 傳授經戒儀注訣 am 金鈕弟子 an 太上髙玄法師

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ao 太玄部 ap 道徳經 aq 三皇弟子 ar 洞神部 as 太上洞神三皇儀 at 張萬福 au 洞玄靈寶道士受三洞經戒法籙擇 日曆 av 三洞眾戒 aw 唐天皇 ax 太玄真經 ay 靈寶課中法 az 傳授三洞經戒法籙略說 ba 三歸戒 bb 無上十戒 bc 籙生 bd 三洞眾戒文 be 要修科儀戒律鈔 bf 初真戒 bg 出家 bh 虛皇天尊初真十戒文 bi 仙靈籙 bj 百八十戒重律 bk 太上老君經律 bl 天尊十戒十四持身品 bm 洞玄靈寶天尊說十戒經 bn 太清陰陽戒 bo 五千文 bp 想爾 bq 道德尊經戒 br 洞神三洞要言五戒，十三戒，七 百二十戒門 bs 昇玄內教弟子 bt 閉塞六情戒 bu 靈寶初盟 bv 自然劵 bw 智慧上品大戒 bx 太上洞真智慧上品大戒 by 三元 bz 洞玄三元品戒經

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Taoist Ordination Ranks in the Tun-huang Manuscripts

ca 智慧觀身三百大戒 cb 上清洞真智慧觀身大戒文 cc 洞玄靈寶三洞奉道科戒營始 cd 更令 ce 童子，一，三，十，將軍籙 cf 男官，女官 cg 上仙 ch 上靈 ci 仙官七十五將軍籙 cj 靈官 ck 失題道經 cl 度仙靈籙儀 cm 章表 cn 清 co 閲兵 cp 録（籙）名儀 cq 狀 cr 保舉 cs 正一法文太上外籙儀 ct 泰玄都正一平氣係天師某治祭酒 cu 臣，妾，某 cv 二十八宿 cw 太 上洞玄靈寶三元品戒功德輕 重經 cx 女青鬼律 cy 太真玉帝四極明科經 cz 玄都左右女青律文 da 治籙 db 科 dc 元命赤籙 dd 元命真人 de 閲紫籙儀 df 正一威儀經 dg 閲籙 dh 醮籙 di 清信弟子 dj 善男子，善女人 dk 上清真人 dl 盟文 dm 雍州

1827

dn 唐真戒 do 冲虛觀 dp 閻履明 dq 男生 dr 景仙 ds 三洞法師 dt 張 du 東明観 dv 李無上 dw 張仁遂 dx 陰志清 dy 張玄𧦪 dz 開元觀 ea 馬遊嶽 eb 王玉真 ec 索崇術 ed 法名 ee 某嶽先生 ef 授道德五千文儀 eg 傳授五千籙儀 eh 索栖岳 ei 神泉觀 ej 吳紫陽 ek 張仙翼 el 法師 em 太上道徳法師 en 想爾二十七戒 eo 洞上公 ep 洞淵神呪經 eq 昇玄經 er 夷堅志 es 祭酒 et 都功 eu 受籙次第法信儀 ev 道典論 ew 正一法文法籙部儀 ex 先生 ey 東嶽先生 ez 職位 fa 度師

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1828 fb 濟主 fc 三寶弟子 fd 奉竹五千文事 fe 老君 ff 太上道德法師奉行三洞某事 fg 閱眾籙儀 fh 大洞三景弟子 fi 係 天師某治氣三五步綱大洞三景 弟子

fj 三皇文 fk 五符 fl 五法

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fm 五岳真形圖 fn 七星籙 fo 河圖寶籙 fp 靈寶經目 fq 上清經目 fr 三洞奉道科戒儀範 fs 太平部 ft 太平經 fu 三會 fv 露壇 fw 醮三洞真文五法正一盟威籙立成 儀

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Taoism in the T’ien-pao Era, 742–56 T. H. Barrett The total abandonment of the cautious religious policy of the earlier part of the dynasty that took place during the T’ien-pao period is quite apparent even from a cursory glance at the measures taken at this time towards the religious communities. In 741 a request that both Buddhist and Taoist clergy should in cases of criminal conduct be tried in accordance with regulations appropriate to them without interference from the civil authorities was granted,1 but thereafter any attempt to pursue an equitable policy towards both religious communities seems to have been entirely relinquished. In the fifth month of 747, for example, the Celestial Master (t’ien-shih) Chang Tao-ling, the second-century founder of the movement whence most Taoist groups traced their descent, and T’ao Hung-ching (456–536), the great systematizer of Taoist doctrine, were granted posthumous titles.2 In the first month of the same year an edict had authorized the ordination of Taoist priests as necessary to staff any Taoist religious establishments where numbers were lower than seven priests or where there were no priests at all.3 In neither case do we hear of similar measures being taken to appease the Buddhists, nor yet in the following year, when up to fifteen Taoists were ordered to be ordained for each place in the empire where a cave, palace or mountain indicated a site numinous enough to require an altar.4 References to the copying out and distribution of ten copies of the entire Taoist canon in 749 and a further five copies in 751 similarly seems to reflect entirely unilateral support for Taoism.5 In this case moreover such support must be traced back initially to the K’ai-yüan period, when at some stage that cannot be dated precisely a definitive version of the canon was prepared on imperial command.6 It would Source: “Taoism in the T’ien-pao Era, 742–56,” in T. H. Barrett, Taoism Under the T’ang, London: Wellsweep Press, 1996, 60–73. 1  t hy 50, p. 865. 2  t hy 50, p. 881. 3  t fyk 54: 10b. 4  t fyk 54:11a–b; ttclc 9, p. 53. The mention of Chang Tao-ling and T’ao Hung-ching in this edict, if not simply a recapitulation of measures already taken, may indicate 748 as a preferable dare for their ennoblement. 5  t tclc 9, p. 54; tfyk 54:16a. 6  See Yoshioka, Dōkyō keiten shiron, pp. 109–111.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���9 | doi:��.��63/9789004380202_056

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Barrett

be misleading, however, to suggest that these signs of imperial favour were designed to promote the interests of the Taoist religious community as such. Rather, support for the Taoist church seems to have remained subordinate to the two major innovations of Hsüan-tsung’s policy towards Taoism, both of which were designed to enhance the prestige of the imperial house. The first of these was the organized worship of Lao-tzu, the imperial ancestor, which was designed to stress the supernatural origins of the imperial line and its continued support by supernatural powers. The second was the institution of a system of education and examination for entrance to the civil service based on Taoist rather than Confucian texts, which was presumably intended to introduce into the bureaucracy a group of men whose interests were more closely identified with those of the T’ang rulers than was sometimes the case for officials whose Confucian values might lead them into conflict with their sovereign. Both these innovations appear together in the late K’ai-yüan period, and throughout the T’ien-pao period both were subject to a process of continual modification which suggests that Hsüan-tsung considered them equally important. Thus the earliest possible reliable mention of either a temple to the Emperor of the Mysterious Origin (i.e. Lao-tzu), a Hsüan-yüan huang-ti miao, or to a College of Taoist Studies, Ch’ung-hsüan hsüeh, occurs in an edict of 740, when the emperor decreed that a former residence of his in the capital should be converted for the joint use of two institutions under these names.7 This edict follows an account of a dream in which Lao-tzu had appeared to Hsüan-tsung.8 and in the following year two more dreams of the same sort encouraged the emperor further in his projects: a large number of sources indeed associate his new foundations with these further manifestations of 741.9 The first of these two dreams revealed the whereabouts of a statue of Lao-tzu, whilst the second resulted in the distribution of icons of Lao-tzu throughout the empire, a move which was followed in 744 by the further distribution of Taoist and Buddhist images together with images of Hsüan-tsung himself; the emperor seems to

7  t fyk 53:18a. 8  t fyk 53:17a–18a. 9  See J. J. L. Duyvendak, “The Dreams of the Emperor Hsüan-tsung,” India Antiqua (Leiden, 1947), pp. 102–8. Fujiyoshi Masumi, on p. 827, note 4 of his “Kanri tōyō ni okeru Dōkyo to sono igi,” Shirin 51:6 (November, 1968), pp. 795–829, favors 741 as the date of the founding of the Ch’ung-hsüan hsüeh; so too does Ting Huang, on p. 307, note 84 of his “T’ang-tai tao-chiao t’ai-ch’ing kung chih-tu k’ao,” Li-shih hsüeh-pao (Kuo-li Ch’eng-kung ta-hsüeh) 6 (July, 1979), pp. 275–314.

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have been particularly interested in exploiting all opportunities for promoting his prestige through art.10 But the events of 741, and a yet more spectacular series of events in 742, were to have even greater consequences in the field of ritual. In the first month of the latter year, after a succession of miracles throughout the whole of 741,11 T’ien Wen-hsiu, who was attached to the staff of one of the imperial princes, reported that Lao-tzu had appeared to him in the street and announced to him the location of a talisman, which the emperor then told him to retrieve. T’ien was naturally successful in this, and the appearance of this final portent persuaded Hsüan-tsung to change the name of the era to T’ien-pao, Heavenly Treasure.12 The talisman itself was placed in the new Hsüan-yüan huang-ti temple in the capital, which as a result of the innovations of 741 was now but one of a national network of such temples. In the ninth month this temple and its companions in the eastern capital and elsewhere received the more exalted title T’ai-shang hsüan-yüan huang-ti kung.13 In 743 the titles were again changed: the temple in Ch’ang-an was named the T’ai-ch’ing kung, that in Loyang the T’ai-wei kung, and those in the provinces Tzu-chi kung.14 These changes in nomenclature were one concomitant of Hsüan-tsung’s development of a system of rituals for the worship of Lao-tzu; another series of changes also took place in the cities applied to Lao-tzu himself. The measures of 743 formed part of a decree changing the sage’s official appellation to Ta-sheng-tsu hsüan-yüan huang-ti, but in 749 this was further improved to Sheng-tsu ta-tao hsüan-yüan huang-ti in conjunction with a series of improvements in the titles of the emperor’s more immediate ancestors.15 Finally in 754 it was decreed that Lao-tzu should be worshipped under the name Ta-shengtsu kao-shang ta-tao chin-ch’üeh hsüan-yüan t’ien-huang ta-ti, a title which identified Lao-tzu with the highest level of deity in the state cult of heaven and in the pantheon of the Taoist church.16 The dominant role of the T’ai-ch’ing kung in the cult of Lao-tzu is shown by the fact that chief ministers were made 10  See E. Schafer, “The T’ang Imperial Icon,” Sinologica 7:3 (1963), pp. 156–60; and “Notes on T’ang Culture III,” Monumenta Serica 30 (1972–3), pp. 100–03. 11   t fyk 53:19a–23b. 12   t fyk 54:1a–b; thy 50, p. 865; ttclc 4, pp. 21–22. 13   t fyk 54:4a; thy 50, p. 866. 14   t fyk 54:5a–b; ttclc 78, pp. 442–3. For the establishment, location and size of the first and second named, and also for the temple at Lao-tzu’s birthplace, see Ting, “T’ai-ch’ing kung chih-tu k’ao.” 15   t tclc 78, p. 445; tfyk 54:12b. 16   t fyk 54:17b.

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commissioners of the temple, t’ai-ch’ing kung shih,17 and by the constant modifications made in the rituals performed there; special provisions were already made in 742 prior to its renaming, and further steps were taken in 745, 749, 751 and 754.18 Particular attention was also paid to the iconography of the T’aich’ing kung; in 742 it was equipped with statues of the emperor and of Lao-tzu, in 746 statues of the emperor’s chief ministers were added, and in 749 further statues of Confucius, Chuang-tzu, Lieh-tzu, Wen-tzu and Keng-sang-tzu were placed in the T’ai-ch’ing kung and (in this case at least) in the T’ai-wei kung.19 The T’ai-ch’ing kung seems to have been particularly favoured also by the unseen powers supporting the T’ang; appearances of Lao-tzu or other miracles are recorded as having taken place there in 745, 746 and 754, at which point the emperor ordered that these signs of special interest should be the occasion of a disbursement of gifts to the Taoist priests serving there.20 Throughout this period a constant stream of miraculous happenings was reported to the throne from throughout the empire. In 749, as a result of the discovery of auspicious fungi (yü-chih) in this and the previous years and the discovery in the sixth month of the year of a jade talisman (chen-fu), Ch’ang-an, Loyang and ten other sites in the empire were ordered to establish Taoist institutions named Chen-fu yü-chih kuan.21 It is by no means clear what special function these institutions were intended to fulfil, if any; they would seem to demonstrate an intermediate level of patronage between the sporadic foundation of single Taoist establishments, which was also continuing to take place, and the introduction of an empire-wide network of temples such as the K’ai-yüan temples and the temples to Lao-tzu. The last-named certainly formed the backbone of Hsüan-tsung’s state-sponsored system of Taoist worship during this period, nor least because of their connection with his efforts to promote a distinctively Taoist system of education. For according to the edict which established the temples in 741 they were to serve also as the premises for schools of Taoism in each prefecture, each staffed by one instructor in Taoist studies, the ch’ung-hsüan po-shih.22 This did not provide an educational system as widespread as that of the Confucian schools, 17  R. des Rotours, Traité des fonctionnaires et traité de l’armee p. 14. 18   t hy 50: p. 866; tfyk 54:9a, 13b–14a, 15a, 17b. 19   t hy 50, p. 865; cts 9, p. 220; thy 50, p. 881 and ttclc 9, p. 54. 20   t fyk 54:8a, 10a, 17a; tctc 217, p. 6923. 21   t fyk 54:12a, 13b: ttclc 9, p. 54. 22   t fyk 53:18b; cts 9, p. 213: thy 64, p. 1121. Fujiyoshi, “Dōkyo to sono igi,” provides a comprehensive survey of Taoism in the examinations, on which the account given here is based.

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which existed also at the district level, but it represented a completely unprecedented extension of imperial efforts to increase the popularity of Taoism. These local “Colleges of Taoist Studies” (Ch’ung-hsüan hsüeh) bore the same name as the college in the capital. That college was certainly no anomaly when compared to the broad range of central academic and quasi-academic institutes already established in the T’ang period and when it is remembered that the Northern Chou and Sui dynasties had maintained Taoist institutions in the capital of an academic nature. But the simultaneous provision of a system of examinations, tao-chü, whereby an education in the Ch’ung-hsüan hsüeh could be used to qualify a candidate for entry into the civil service put it on a par with the highest educational institutions in the land. As with the temples to Lao-tzu the years following 741 saw a number of measures taken to modify the provisions of the original edict. First experts in the Tao-te ching, Chuang-tzu, Wen-tzu and Lieh-tzu had to be found before in 742 posts for experts in these texts were instituted in Ch’ang-an and a student body of one hundred persons authorized.23 In the same year the Tao-te ching, which had counted as a “small classic” in terms of length for the requirements of the regular examination system, was removed from this humiliating category so that it was only examined in the tao-chü, though its study was of course by no means abandoned by candidates for other examinations.24 In 743, at the same time as the change in nomenclature decreed for the T’ai-ch’ing kung and other temples, the Ch’ung-hsüan hsüeh in Ch’ang-an and Loyang were renamed Ch’ung-hsüan kuan and their po-shih were renamed hsüeh-shih, thus giving these institutions the status of academies and their teachers the status of academicians.25 This emphasized their close connection with the emperor, but did not alter their function as teachers, though they were asked to perform additional duties such as public lectures on their texts.26 The post of ta hsüeh-shih, or chief academician, was also created at this time, with overall responsibility for Taoism in the capitals: as with the t’ai-ch’ing kung shih, it was occupied by one of the chief ministers.27

23   h ts 5, p. 142; cts 9, p. 215. 24   t fyk 54:3a–b. 25   t fyk 54:4b. 26   t tclc 74, p. 443. This decree admits that the hsüeh-shih’s students were not yet very advanced in their studies, so they were given three years’ grace during which educarional testing was to be made less rigorous than normal. 27   c stp 86:5b. thy 64, p. 1122, gives the name of the other holder of the post, who was promoted in 746 to the same rank (ttclc 45, p. 223).

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The only significant change made after this date had more to do with Hsüantsung’s continuing efforts to increase devotion to his sage ancestor than to further institutional refinements. In 754 the Tao-te ching was removed even from the examination curriculum of the tao-chü and replaced by the I ching.28 That this indicated an increased rather than a diminished respect for the Tao-te ching may be gauged from the reasons for its earlier exclusion from the regular examinations and from a number of other moves during this period indicative of the high value placed upon it. Thus in 745 it was ordered that the Tao-te ching should be ranked as first of the classics, the most honoured position in all bibliographic listings and far superior to its normal classification amongst the works of the philosophical schools.29 The same order decreed that the honorific title for Lao-tzu should be substituted for his name in all texts, and the whole measure (which also improved the position of the Chuang-tzu and other Taoist works) may be seen as an extension of an earlier move in 742 which placed Lao-tzu at the top of the received historical ranking of sages.30 The further distribution of copies of Hsüan-tsung’s commentary and subcommentary throughout the ten provinces of the empire in 755 shows that if anything increased attention was paid to the Tao-te ching after 754.31 The tao-chü examinations themselves were supposed to follow the precedent of the ming-ching examinations in their format, although one or two modifications were introduced.32 On two occasions, however, special examinations on Taoist texts were also held to supplement the tao-chü. The first of these, an examination on the “Four Masters” of Taoist philosophy, was held by the emperor himself in the ninth month of 741.33 The second was a decree examination named the tung-hsiao hsüan-ching examination which took place in 754.34 The mention of “Four Masters” reveals an anomaly when compared with the list of Taoist masters (including Lao-tzu) honoured in the T’ai-ch’ing kung. In 741 we find no mention of Keng-sang-tzu. In the second month of the next year, however, the emperor asked for a discussion of appropriate titles for Chuang-tzu, Lieh-tzu, Wen-tzu, Keng-sang-tzu and the works under their

28   t fyk 640:4b. 29   t hy 50, p. 880. 30   t fyk 54:2a. 31   t fyk 54:18a: cts 9, p. 230. 32   t fy 77, p. 1404. 33   t fyk 53:22b–23a; ttclc 106, p. 550. 34   c tw 522:4a.

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names,35 though a report of the fifth month of that year reveals that no experts in the classic of Keng-sang-tzu had been found.36 The present text of the Keng-sang-tzu is well known to be the work of Wang Shih-yüan, who was active during the T’ien-pao period.37 Since the report speaks of a need to make copies of the text in mid-742 it may be that Wang had realized the need created for a fifth Taoist classic to match the five classics of Confucianism and had already presented a copy of his freshly-composed work by this time; one early ninth century source even suggests that at first he tried to pass it off as a genuine ancient text transmitted through his family, and that when his forgery was detected the Keng-sang-tzu was not used in the examinations.38 Why Wang should have attributed his work to a minor (and needless to say fictional) figure, mentioned in the pages of the Chuang-tzu and Lieh-tzu but hardly important, is a mystery, though the presence of Keng-sangtzu in an inconspicuous place in the pantheon of the Taoist church may have enhanced his suitability.39 What Wang was apparently forced to concede was that his “reconstruction” of the Keng-sang-tzu consists in fact of these portions of the Chuang-tzu and Lieh-tzu, padded out with other early passages drawn mainly from the Lü-shih ch’un-ch’iu and interspersed with thoughts on such matters as the recruitment of talent and filial piety which in all probability derive from Wang himself. That the authorities in charge of Taoist education should even have contemplated examining students on such a melange of ideas, few of which relate to any form of Taoism, and that they should eventually have included the Confucian I ching amongst their texts argues that the production of bureaucrats educated in an exclusively Taoist manner presented a number of problems. It is indeed rather hard to find among the many Taoists surrounding the emperor many who were simultaneously Taoists and bureaucrats. Some of the writings of Ssu-ma Ch’eng-chen such as his Tso-wang lun would seem to be addressed to a general audience including scholar-officials,40 and references in Sung times to this work and to other writings by T’ang authors suggest that 35   t hy 50, p. 880. 36   t hy 77, p. 1404. 37  Chang Hsin-ch’eng, Wei-shu t’ung-k’ao (Shanghai, 1957), pp. 856–60. 38  Chao Chen-hsin, ed., Feng-shih wen-chien chi (Shanghai, 1958), pp. 2–3. Scarcely any questions from the tao-chü survive, but those that do at any rate make no mention of the Keng-sang-tzu. 39  See Ishii Masako, Dōkyōgaku no kenkyü (Tokyo, 1980), p. 234. 40  For this work, see Tokiwa Daijō, Shina ni okeru Bukkyō to Jukyō Dōkyō (Tokyo, 1930), pp. 654–661.

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the Taoists of this period did in the long term achieve some success in creating a spiritualized “gentry Taoism” in competition with Buddhism.41 But Ssuma’s immediate impact on the ruling elite is not so clear, and the patriarch certainly shunned any administrative role himself. The same also holds true of his disciple Li Han-kuang, who succeeded to Ssu-ma’s position of influence upon his master’s death in 735; several of Li’s writings (which have not survived) were devoted to the I ching, the Tao-te ching and the Chuang-tzu, which had been widely studied by scholars since the period of disunion as the “three Mysteries,” san-hsüan.42 In all Li was persuaded to visit the capital but three times, although the third time, in 748, he conferred a high level ordination upon the emperor. This was strictly speaking superfluous, since his master Ssuma Ch’eng-chen had already done this at his first appearance at Hsüan-tsung’s court in 721, but the act was probably in both cases simply symbolic; there was a long tradition of honouring emperors in such ceremonies.43 The T’ien-pao period certainly saw an expansion in the number of Taoist priests charged with administrative duties. The only tao-men wei-i who is mentioned in sources of this period, and perhaps the sole occupant of the post, was Wang Hsü-chen. Wang may have been partly responsible for the compilation of the emperor’s subcommentary to the Tao-te ching in 732, and by the time of his death in 755 he is described as having been “in charge of all Taoist priests.”44 But Wang was not without assistants; one, Hsiao Miao, is described as “commissioner for Taoists throughout the empire,” t’ien-hsia tao-men shih, in one later collection of anecdotes,45 though contemporary epigraphic evidence from 742 names him simply as a chien-chiao tao-men wei-i or “collateral Taoist ritualist.”46 This type of title implying a supernumerary appointment is attested in other inscriptions.47 It is the subject too of an edict banning any further such appointments for Buddhists and Taoists in the capital on the grounds that

41  See p. 318 of Meng Wen-t’ung, “Tao-chiao shih so-t’an.” Chung-kuo che-hsüeh 4 (1980), pp. 308–24; Wu Tseng. Neng-kai-chai man-lu 5 (Shanghai, 1960), p. 312; Yü Chia-hsi, Ssu-k’u t’i-yao pien-cheng (Peking, 1958), pp. 1213–14. 42  For Li’s biography and writings, see Ch’en, Tao-tsang yüan-hu k’ao, pp. 59–61, and F. H. Schaler, “Mao Shan in T’ang Times,” Society for the Study of Chinese Religions Monographs no. 1. (1980), pp. 46–7. 43  See Anna Seidel, “Le fils du Ciel et la Maître Celeste,” Transactions of the International Conference of Orientalists in Japan 24 (1979), pp. 119–27. 44  See Imaeda, “Dōtoku shinkei so,” p. 82; tfyk 54:18a. 45  Tu Kuang-t’ing, Tao-chiao ling-yen chi 1:3b (in Tao-tsang 325–6, no. 590). 46   c stp 86:1b. 47   c tw 441:7a–10b, 990:21a–24a.

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they encouraged interreligious strife.48 Since this edict implies the presence of Buddhist administrators also it is worth noting that Li Han-kuang already held during Hsüan-tsung’s reign the title of kung-te shih, which was later used by the eunuch administrators of the Buddhist clergy, though apparently only on an ad hoc basis for one specific project.49 The fact however that these Taoist administrative posts seem to have been equivalent to Buddhist posts which were never assigned to scholar-officials suggests that the occupants of these positions were not considered to be members of the regular bureaucracy. Besides these priests turned administrators, the court of Hsüan-tsung was also frequented by a certain number of intellectuals who became Taoist priests. Foremost among these was the poet Wu Yün (?–778), chiefly known to posterity because of his friendship with his more famous contemporary Li Po (701–62).50 Following a conventional education Wu had entered for the chinshih examination without success, and had subsequently embarked on a wandering life that brought him into the company of a number of literary figures. After achieving a measure of fame as a poet he was summoned to court at the beginning of the T’ien-pao period, but left shortly thereafter to enter the priesthood. In 754 he presented the results of his Taoists studies to the throne in the form of a treatise entitled the Hsüan-kang lun, but otherwise seems to have preferred to continue to pursue his Taoist and literary interests in the region of the Yangtze rather than in Ch’ang-an. Wu’s writings on Taoism may be compared to those of Ssu-ma Ch’eng-chen in that they seek to provide an intellectual alternative to Buddhism and would appear to be addressed to a general audience rather than to initiates, but Wu’s standing as a priest was hardly comparable to Ssu-ma’s, since he only received the initial Cheng-i ordination. Yet Wu Yün’s continuing use of his secular gifts as a writer in the service of Taoism after his entry into the priesthood was somewhat unusual, since such a move was more often associated with retirement from public life. For example the scholar and official Ho Chih-chang closed a distinguished career in various academic posts in 743 by requesting imperial permission for his ordination and donating his own mansion to the Taoist church.51 Yin Yin, a priest who in 48   t tclc 113, p. 590. 49   c tw 345:15a. 50  On the career and thought of Wu Yün, see E. H. Schafer, “Wu Yün’s ‘Cantos on Pacing the Void’,” hjas 41:2 (December, 1981), pp. 377–415; Kamitsuka Yoshiko, “Go In no shōgai to shisō,” Tōhō shūkyō 54 (Nov., 1979), pp. 33–51; “Wu Yün’s Theory of the Attainability of Immortality,” Transactions of the International Conference of Orientalists in Japan 25 (1980), pp. 137–8. 51   h ts 196, p. 5607; thy 50, p. 880.

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737 was persuaded to embark on a career similar to that of Ho is particularly remarked on as having been allowed the special privilege of continuing to wear clerical dress, which again seems to indicate the exceptional nature of his dual role.52 Hsüan-tsung’s ambitious promotion of Taoism undoubtedly had a profound effect on his bureaucracy and it is even possible to point to some officials who appear to have specialized in Taoist affairs.53 But the Taoist priesthood and the imperial civil service remained essentially separate, and the ideology of the latter remained much as it always had done since before the advent of the T’ang; hardly as exclusively Confucian as the civil service of later dynasties, but ultimately based on an education in which Confucian learning preponderated over any form of Taoist studies. To change this situation was more than one man, however long and brilliant his reign, could achieve by himself. Yet Hsüan-tsung’s efforts to create an alternative to the traditional Confucian conception of monarchy were finally rejected only under later dynasties, and his many ideological innovations did not simply evaporate in 755 in the face of the rebellion of An Lu-shan. Rather the T’ang dynasty continued to draw on the reserve of ideological capital he had amassed until its final demise, and the fact that this process took a century and a half to complete bears witness to the efficacy of Hsüan-tsung’s strengthening through Taoism of the prestige of his family line. Even his arch-enemy An Lu-shan himself clearly assigned considerable importance to Hsüan-tsung’s system of state support for Taoism; the chance survival of an inscription shows that in the territory which came temporarily under his control An took the trouble to rename at least one Taoist institution with his own reign title, Sheng-wu.54

52   h ty 63, p. 1101. 53  E.g. Wei T’ao, for whom see ctw 307:11a–16a; hts 122, pp. 4355–60; 196, p. 5606; T’ang-wen shih-i 50:17b: T’ang-wen hsū shih-t 3:5b–6a (rpt. Taipei, 1962). 54  This inscription is listed on p. 118 of Fan T’eng-tuan, comp., “Kuan ts’ang Li T’ang mu chih mu,” part 4, Kuo-li Pei-p’ing t’u-shu-kuan kuan-k’an 9:6 (Nov.–Dec. 1936). pp. 111–34.

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Li Po’s Transcendent Diction Paul W. Kroll Heaven is my home and I must use my wings; Sublime above the globe my flight aspires: I have a soul was made to pity kings, And all their little glittering things; I have a soul was made for infinite desires. Isaac Watts (1674–1748), “True Wisdom”

∵ I Protasis Of the several areas of Li Po scholarship still awaiting satisfactory study, perhaps none has been more consistently neglected than the great poet’s Taoist connection. Scholars both Asian and Western almost uniformly wink at or miserably misinterpret Li Po’s use of Taoist imagery and diction in his poems. It is true that some forays in the topic have been attempted. But in virtually every instance such efforts view the poet’s so-called “Taoist” sentiments in the light of politics, as indications of Li Po’s “escapist” or “satirical” tendencies, or else they regard as the only “Taoist” statements worth examining the poet’s use of allusions to the Lao tzu and Chuang tzu texts or to supposedly philosophical concepts contained in those works.1 Studies of this sort, however, quite miss Source: “Li Po’s Transcendent Diction,” Journal of the American Oriental Society 106 (1986): 99–117. 1  The essays by Ch’en I-hsin 陳貽焮, “T’ang-tai mou-hsieh chih-shih-fen-tzu yin-i ch’iu-hsien te cheng-chih mu-ti, chien lun Li Po te cheng-chih li-hsiang ho ts’ung-cheng t’u-ching” 唐代 某些知識分子隱逸求仙的政治目的, 兼論李白的政治理想和從政途徑, in Li Po yenchiu lun-wen chi 李白硏究論文集 (Peking, 1964), 385–406; Komatsu Tadashi 小松忠志, “Ri Haku no kyūsen ni tsuite” 李白の求仙について, Nagano tanki daigaku kiyō 長野短期大 學紀要 20 (1965); Li Chi-t’ang 李繼唐, “T’an-t’an Li Po te ch’iu-hsien hsüeh-tao” 談談李白 的求仙學道, in Li Po shih yen-chiu chuan-chi 李白詩研究專集 (Hong Kong, 1969), 44–53; and Mai Ch’ao-shu 麥朝樞, “Li Po ch’iu-hsien hsüeh-tao yü cheng-chih huo-tung te ts’otsung pien-hua” 李白求仙學道與政治活動的錯綜變化, Part I, Kuang-ming jih-pao wenhsüeh i-ch’an 440 (18 Nov. 1962), and Part ii, Kuang-ming jih-pao wen-hsüeh i-ch’an 441 (25 Nov.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���9 | doi:��.��63/9789004380202_057

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the point. Rarely do they succeed in telling us anything worthwhile about the verbal craft or technique behind Li Po’s poetry, and almost never do they result in a fuller critical reading of any individual poem. Most culpably, though, they are not actually concerned with, and do not confront, Taoism as it was known to Li Po himself.2 For to Li Po, as to all other T’ang poets, “Taoism” meant the sacred scriptures, solemn practices, and holy mysteries comprehended in the religious sphere of the Shang-ch’ing 上淸 and Ling-pao 靈賨 traditions—a well-developed and, for the most part, elite spiritual domain that had defined itself during the Six Dynasties period and assumed notable importance in the lives of the medieval literocracy. Indeed Li Po is only one of many poets whose works reveal the immense influence of this hierological realm on T’ang literature. But, although extensive and important studies in various aspects of medieval Taoism have been appearing regularly over the past two decades from French and Japanese scholars, and lately from some Americans as well, very few students 1962), are all of this sort. B. Belpaire’s early essay “Le taoisme et Li T’ai Po,” in Mélanges chinois et bouddhiques 1 (1931–32), 1–14, is partly on the right track, but the few critical remarks made by Belpaire (the article is composed almost entirely of unannotated translations) are vitiated by his unfamiliarity with medieval Taoist texts. Kuo Mo-jo’s chapter “Li Po te tao-chiao mi-hsin chi ch’i chüeh-hsing” 李白的道教迷信及其覺醒, in his Li Po yü Tu Fu 李白與 杜甫 (Peking, 1972), 85–98, betrays in its very title the author’s own biased view of the question, and indeed throughout the chapter Kuo is overly concerned to rescue the poet from the clutches of what he supposes are the harmful delusions of Taoism. A similar attitude had previously been shown by Wang Yao 王瑶 in his book Li Po 李白 (1954; rpt. Shanghai, 1979), 63–65, who boldly asserts that Li Po could not have been a believing disciple of Taoist teachings, despite his formal initiation. This line of thought has its most recent expression in An Ch’i’s 安旗 Li Po tsung-heng t’an 李白縱横探 (Hsi-an, 1981), 50–51, where it is stated that the poet’s formal initiation into the order was undertaken (1) to assuage his feelings of bitterness and disappointment after his unsatisfactory period at court and (2) as a means to avoid further persecution by those at court who had slandered him to the emperor. Arthur Waley’s book The Poetry and Career of Li Po (London, 1950), offers a few comments (pp. 17–18, 30–31) in this area but they are perfunctory. In a work that purports to be a comprehensive history of eighth-century poetry, Stephen Owen, The Great Age of Chinese Poetry: The High T’ang (New Haven, 1981) devotes one paragraph (p. 140) to some particularly uninformed remarks on the subject (some of which are taken over from Waley), casually dismissing Taoism as not a serious factor in Li Po’s verse. 2  Virtually the only Chinese scholar to write with a clear mind on the subject is Li Ch’ang-chih 李長之, whose little volume Tao-chiao t’u te shih-jen Li Po chi ch’i t’ung-k’u 道教徒的詩人李 白及其痛苦 (1939; rpt., Hong Kong, 1980) offers two chapters (pp. 19–44) that deliver an unprejudiced presentation of some of the “Taoist” poems. But Li’s presentation too is hampered by his inadequate command of the sacred texts of the tradition.

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of medieval literature have in fact availed themselves of the insights to be gained from an acquaintance with the Taoist culture of T’ang China.3 While it is axiomatic among sinologists that, if one is fully to understand medieval literature he must be thoroughly versed in the classic texts of the Confucian canon and the more important of the scriptures of medieval Buddhism, a comparable concern has rarely been shown for the writings of medieval Taoism— despite the fact that most poets of the T’ang were well-read in these texts and make much use of phrases and concepts gleaned from them in their verses. Much T’ang poetry has in consequence been misread, misapprehended, and mistranslated, or—when the difficulties of interpretation seem too great— simply ignored altogether. The present paper is an attempt to restore to a few more or less opaque poems of Li Po their intelligibility, in light of their precise Taoist diction and imagery.4 We begin with a poem, rather baffling at first glance, entitled “The Lady of the Highest Prime” (Shang-yüan fu-jen 上元夫人):

4



8



Shang-yüan is what Lady? Specially matching the Royal Mother’s loveliness. Upborne and apical—her tri-cornered chignon; The rest of her hair falling loosely to her waist. As outer wrap she wears a blue furred damask, And her person is attired in a caftan of red frost. By her hand she leads forward little miss Ying, Idly blows with her a phoenix-call on the pipes. Conversing with their eyebrows, the two of them laugh freely, Then on a sudden they glide away, in the wake of the wind.5

3  This is one of the regrettable outcomes for sinology of the strict segregation of “disciplines” in American graduate education, resulting all too often in “literature” specialists who assume they can comprehend the fullness of medieval poetry, for instance, without pondering the “historical” or “religious” texts of the same period, or “historians” who will not study the imaginative or spiritual works produced in the age whose political and social truths they attempt to consider, or scholars of “philosophy” or “religious studies” who look on their texts as repositories of timeless reflection, unaffected by the peculiar vagaries of an epoch’s literary traditions or historical particulars. 4  For an examination of the pervasive Taoist elements in Li Po’s series of six poems on “Wandering on Mount T’ai,” see Paul W. Kroll, “Verses From on High: The Ascent of T’ai Shan,” T’oung Pao 69 (1983), 248–60. 5  Li T’ai-po ch’üan-chi 李太白全集 [hereafter ltpcc] (Taipei, 1975), 22.499; Li Po chi chiao-chu 李白集校注 [hereafter lpccc] (Shanghai, 1980), 22.1290.

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Proper identification of the ethereal woman who is the subject of this poem is of course critical for the reader. Shang-yüan fu-jen is one of the most exalted goddesses of medieval Taoism. The equal in beauty of Hsi Wang Mu 西王母, as the poet remarks in his second line, she is probably best remembered for her participation with that more famous goddess in the divine banquets hosted by the Royal Mother in 110 bc, and 66 ad for, respectively, the avid ruler Liu Ch’e 劉徹 (i.e. Han Wu Ti 漢武帝, a seeker at that time of Taoist arts; r. 141–87 bc) and the three devout brothers Mao (i.e., Mao Ying 茅盈, Mao Ku 茅固, and Mao Chung 茅衷, major figures in Taoist hagiography).6 In both instances, according to the texts in which these fêtes are recounted, when Hsi Wang Mu decided to transfer supernal writings and talismans to the fortunate humans, she requested the Lady of the Highest Prime to assist her. The mortal beings, upon asking who this mysterious lady was (cf. the first line of Li Po’s poem), are informed that she is a celestial officer, in whose care are the rosters of the jade maidens of the ten regions of heaven. And they further learn, before she appears in person, that Shang-yüan fu-jen is on familiar terms with the great lord of the rising sun, Fu-sang ta ti-chün 扶桑大帝君 and is easily capable of crossing vast tracts of sky and sea in a trice. When she does descend from the clouds it is to the accompaniment of unearthly pan-pipes and drums. Her retinue is composed of over a thousand comely young lasses, all in their late teens, wearing raiment of shimmering bright blue. The grand lady herself is described, in the Han Wu ti nei-chuan, as follows: The Lady’s years were possibly a bit more than twenty. Her heavenendowed figure was pure and radiant, her numinous eyes incomparably 6  The story of Liu Ch’e’s meeting with the two ladies is told in Han Wu ti nei-chuan 漢武帝 內傳 (hy 292; The Esoteric Biography of the Martial Thearch of Han). This text has been superbly introduced, translated, and explicated by Kristofer M. Schipper, L’empereur Wou des Han dans la légende taoiste (Paris, 1965). Schipper has established that the major portion of the text involving Shang-yüan fu-jen has been adapted by the author—in some places copied verbatim—from the earlier Mao chün chuan 茅君傳 (Biographies of the Lords Mao), a text that no longer exists as a separate entity but is quoted in several other works. For Shang-yüan fu-jen’s encounter with the Mao brothers, see the quotations in T’ai-p’ing yü-lan 太平御覽 (Scannings of the Autocrat of [the Era of] Greatest Tranquility; comp. Li Fang 李昉 [925–996] et al.) (Taipei, 1968), 678.3b–4a; Liu Ta-pin’s 割大彬 (fl. 1315) Mao shan chih 茅山志 (hy 304; Tractate on Mount Mao), 5.12a–13b; and the slightly shorter accounts in Tu Kuang-t’ing’s 杜光庭 (850–933) Yung-ch’eng chi-hsien lu 墉城集仙錄 (hy 782; Register of Collected Transcendents of the Fortified Enceinte), 2.13a/b; and in T’ai-p’ing kuang-chi 太平 廣記 (Extensive Records from [the Era of] Greatest Tranquility; comp. Li Fang et al.) (Taipei, 1976), 56.119b.

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Li Po ’ s Transcendent Diction

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bright. She was garbed in a caftan of red frost, shot through with cloudstriated hues—it was neither damask nor embroidered and cannot be described in words. Her head was done up in a tricornered chignon, the rest of her hair falling loosely even to her waist. She wore the cap of Ninefold Numinous Night-shining Light. She was girded with a pendant of six-pointed [snowflakes] and of fire jades, plus a dangling seal-ribbon of phoenix patterns and sapphire flowers. At her waist was the sword of wraith-shaking fluid yellow.7 In this dazzling vision we have, quite obviously, the source of Li Po’s poem on the Lady—or at least of the first half of it—even to some of the exact wording. (Although the blue fur-trimmed damask worn as an outer wrap does not appear in the Han Wu ti nei-chuan passage, it is present, virtually ad verbum, in the analogous passage found in the Mao shan chih which likewise reflects a pre-T’ang tradition.) It is important to realize that, in describing the semblance and attire of Shang-yüan fu-jen, Li Po was not free to indulge his private fancy. The outward manifestation, especially the clothing, of the Taoist divinities was carefully particularized in canonical texts: it was imperative to be able clearly to distinguish in one’s visualization (or “meditation”) practices just which inhabitant of the Taoist heavens one was encountering. Indeed, certain distinctive attributes became emblems of the holy figures to whom they were attached. Simple mention of a “caftan of red frost,” for example, was sufficient in T’ang poetry (for those versed in such matters) to identify the presence of Shang-yüan fu-jen.8 In a composition depicting her, therefore, the poet had no option but to preserve in his verse her appearance as recognized in canonical sources—as Li Po has done in lines 3 through 6 of his poem. In the final four lines of his composition, however, Li Po adds a new and playful element to the Lady’s portrait. He presents her as genial companion to Lung-yü 弄玉, “little miss Ying,”9 a girl of noble birth who was supposed to have learned from her husband Hsiao Shih 蕭史 the art of mimicking phoenixcalls on the syrinx and eventually to have soared off with him to the heavens,

7  h y 292, p. 10a. The same description, with minor variants, is given in T’ai-p’ing yü-lan, 678.4a; Yung-ch’eng chi-hsien lu, 2.2b; and Mao shan chih, 5.12b–13a. 8  See the chapter “Jade Consorts and Pelagic Costumes” in Edward H. Schafer’s Mirages on the Sea of Time (Berkeley, 1985) for more on divine apparel, including Shang-yüan fu-jen’s redfrost robe. 9   Putative daughter of Sire Mu of Ch’in 秦穆公 (r. 659–621 bc) whose surname was Ying 贏.

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behind one such divine bird that had come in response to her pipe-playing.10 Here the poet has Shang-yüan fu-jen communicate gaily but enigmatically (to our benighted eyes) with Lung-yü, finally to leave the scene abruptly, borne away on the wind to realms beyond our ken. The poem is both an exercise in verbal iconography and incomprehensible religious wonderment: who is the Lady? She materializes in her characteristic apparel, brings forth a talented younger acquaintance, then too quickly is gone from sight again, returning to her mystic haunts.11 Without a knowledge of the specific Taoist texts upon which Li Po is drawing in his references both to Shang-yüan fu-jen and to “little miss Ying” the poem will remain a mystery to the reader. Only by fellow initiates is it to be fully understood. II

A Packet of Postils

Prior to considering other complete works of Li Po in this vein, I propose to survey briefly a selection of phrases culled from various of his poems, all referring to transcendent objects, practices, or regions, and all inadequately treated by traditional commentators. In addition to clarifying a segment of Li Po’s Taoist diction, which may occasionally aid us later on, it is hoped that this little clutch of scholia may be of benefit in reading the works of other T’ang poets who wrote on like themes. The Damask Satchel In a poem glorifying the peculiar superancy of Mount O-mei 峨嵋山 among the many eminent peaks of Shu, Li Po remarks Coolly indifferent, prizing the purple auroras, Indeed I have gained the techniques of the damask satchel.12 10   Lieh-hsien chuan 列仙傅 (hy 294; Arranged Biographies of Transcendents), 1.17a. 11  Much more could be said about the Lady of the Highest Prime, who deserves a study devoted to herself. Interestingly, the Shang-ch’ing t’ien-kuan san-t’u ching 上淸天關三圖經 (hy 1355; Scripture of the Three Designs of the Barrier of Heaven, from Highest Clarity), p. 3b, notes her as a familiar spirit of the third star of the Dipper. We even have examples of her lyric talents—three quatrains composed by her, for an obtuse young scholar whom she tried, unsuccessfully, to seduce in the ninth century. See translations and commentary in Paul W. Kroll, “Three Taoist Figures of the T’ang Dyansty,” Society for the Study of Chinese Religions Bulletin 9 (1981), 30–34. 12  “Teng O-mei,” ltpcc, 21.470; lpccc, 21.1212.

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And elsewhere, upon bidding farewell to a fellow devotee of the Way, who is setting off on a distant journey, the poet declares I do possess the acroama of the damask satchel, Which may be used, milord, to maintain your person.13 This “damask satchel” (chin nang 錦囊) is one belonging to Hsi Wang Mu. In the Han Wu ti nei-chuan is told how, in consequence of Liu Ch’e’s ardent plea, she removes from it and hands over to the sovereign a scroll that had been carefully stored therein.14 That scroll was the sacred text of the Wu-yüeh chen-hsing t’u 五嶽眞形圖, the “Plans of the True Forms of the Five Marchmounts.” One of the most celebrated periapts of medieval Taoism, known from at least the early fourth century, this document would keep its possessor free from harm (especially—but not only—when entering alpine areas), through the good offices of spiritual emissaries sent by the deities of the Five Holy Mountains.15 We thus recognize the aptness of Li Po’s allusions: in the first instance it is through his knowledge of the “techniques of the damask satchel” that he is able to ascend Mount O-mei and behold its sublime wonders, in the second instance he is generously offering to share these secret teachings with his leavetaking friend so as to ensure the latter’s own safety.16

13  “Ying-yang pieh Yüan Tan-ch’iu chih Huai-yang,” ltpcc, 15.348; lpccc, 15.915. “Acroama”— that is, “secret, privately communicated teachings transmitted only to elect disciples”— renders the word chüeh 訣, an important item in the vocabulary of Taoism, usually translated too weakly as “instructions.” 14   h y 292, pp. 12b–13a, which further describes the satchel as being of “purple” damask. 15  On the traditions and different uses pertaining to this talisman, see K. M. Schipper, “ ‘Gogaku shinkeizu’ no shinkō” 五嶽眞形圖の信仰, Dōkyō kenkyū 道教研究 2 (1967), 114–62. 16  According to the Mao chün chuan, Shang-yüan fu-jen also had a “purple damask satchel,” out of which she took four sacred scriptures to transfer to the two younger Mao brothers (T’ai-p’ing yü-lan, 678.4a; and Yung-ch’eng chi-hsien lu, 2.13a). But the mountain- and journey-oriented contexts of Li Po’s lines indicate that he certainly has in mind rather the damask satchel belonging to Hsi Wang Mu, as it appears in Han Wu ti nei-chuan. Hsi Wang Mu’s purple damask satchel is likewise mentioned in the Tung-chen shang-ch’ing ch’ingyao tzu-shu chin-ken chung-ching 洞真上淸靑要紫書金根衆經 (hy 1304; The Purple Writ of Azure Crux and the Aggregate Scriptures of the Golden Root, from Highest Clarity in the Cavern of Realization), 1.2a, where she removes from it the Jade Books of Realized Acroama of the Purple Writ 紫書眞訣玉篇 to give to the Lord Thearch of the Azure Crux (Ch’ing-yao ti-chün 靑要帝君).

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The Book of the Purple Aurora In a late work in which he proclaims his readiness to abandon his mortal form, quit this world, and enter the realm of the Infinite (wu-ch’iung 無窮), the poet says Serenely chanting the Book of the Purple Aurora, I am permitted to open up the Palace of Stamen and Pearl.17 Tzu-hsia p’ien 紫霞篇, the “Book of the Purple Aurora,” adverts cryptically to one of the most important of Taoist canonical texts, namely the “Scripture of the Yellow Court” (Huang-t’ing ching 黃庭經). This enigmatic work makes reference to the divinities housed within one’s body, especially those dwelling in the five viscera, and was to be chanted while visualizing or “actualizing” those corporal deities. The text is in verse, written in rhyming lines of seven words each, and exists in two separate forms—the wai ching 外經 (or “Outer Scripture”) and the nei ching 內經 (or “Inner Scripture”). We are informed by an early commentator that, if one succeeds in reciting the Huang-t’ing ching ten thousand times, one will have so fortified and equipoised one’s physical form as to be impervious to disease, one’s body will give off an inflorescent sheen, the five viscera will be open to view, and one will have attained the pathway to immortality.18 Extremely influential and widely known in medieval times among the literate class, the Huang-t’ing ching is mentioned often in T’ang poetry. Li Po’s allusion to it as the “Book of the Purple Aurora”—and the reference to the “Palace of Stamen and Pearl” (Jui chu kung 蕊珠宫) is a private coinage, the idiom of an insider, derived from the first stanza of the Inner Scripture, which reads: In the purple aurora of Highest Clarity, before the Radiant One of the Void, The Most High, Great Tao Lord of the Jade Source of Light, 17  “Chih Ling-yang shan, teng T’ien-chu shih, ch’ou Han shih-yü chien chao-yin Huang shan,” ltpcc, 19.441; lpccc, 19.1140. 18  See the preface to the nei-ching in Yün-chi ch’i-ch’ien 雲笈七籤 (hy 1026; Seven Tesserae from the Portfolio of the Clouds), 11.3b. For more information on the Huang-t’ing ching the reader is referred to the long chapter on this text in Isabelle Robinet’s Méditation taoiste (Paris, 1979), 85–149. A translation and discussion of portions of the work (both waiching and nei-ching) has been offered by Rolf Homann, Die wichtigsten Korpergottheiten im Huang-t’ing ching (Göppingen, 1971). Various recensions of both versions are collated, with a short general introduction, in K. M. Schipper, Concordance du Houang-t’ing king (Paris, 1975).

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Dwelling at ease in the Stamen and Pearl [Palace], composed [verses of] seven words, Disposing and transforming the Five Matrices, permutating the myriad spirits: This is deemed the Yellow Court, known as the Inner Book. We shall encounter the Huang-t’ing ching again, in a poem to be considered in the third section of this paper. Sounding Heaven’s Drum A few months before Li Lung-chi 李隆基 (r. 712–756, pht. Hsüan Tsung 玄宗) ascended the throne in 712, two of his royal sisters took Taoist orders. According to Wei Hao 魏顥, who wrote the preface to one of the first collections of Li Po’s verse, it was on the recommendation—as a fellow adherent of the Way—of one of these women, Yü-chen kung-chu 玉眞公主 (The Princess Realized in Jade), that our poet later was summoned in 742 to the emperor’s increasingly Taoicised court.19 In a laudatory poem penned in celebration of her, Li Po says of this devout woman In the clear morning she sounds the drum of heaven, In a flash and a flicker mounts up on a pair of dragons.20 The obscure phrase “sounding heaven’s drum” (ming t’ien ku 鳴天鼓) refers to the purposeful clacking together of one’s four anterior teeth. According to a notice in the Yün-chi ch’i-ch’ien, this dental resonance aids in evoking the superbeings and gods in the course of a formal visualization.21 It is rather fitting, 19  “Li Han-li chi hsü,” ltpcc, 31.708; lpccc, “fu-lu,” 3.1790. The elegant priest-poet Wu Yün 吳筠, who had been called to Ch’ang-an earlier in the year and who was acquainted with Li Po, is also traditionally regarded as having a hand in Li Po’s summons to the imperial court. It is worth noting that it was not merely for his literary prowess, but at least as much for his suppposed spiritual attainments, that Li Po was welcomed to court. 20  “Yü-chen hsien-jen tz’u,” ltpcc, 8.219; lpccc, 8.577. See Edward H. Schafer, “The Princess Realized in Jade,” T’ang Studies 3 (1985), 1–23, for comments and other poems about Yü-chen kung-chu. 21   h y 1026, 31.3a/b; also T’ai-wei ti-chün erh-shih-szu shen hui-yüan ching 太微帝君二十四 神回元經 (hy 1443), 2b, and Shang-ch’ing tzu-ching chün huang ch’u tzu-ling tao-chün tung-fang shang ching 上淸紫精君皇初紫靈道君洞房上經 (hy 405), 5b–6a. We are also told that gnashing the left molars is called “tolling heaven’s bell” (ta t’ien chung 打天 鐘), effective against sudden encounters with malevolent influences if done 36 times, and that clacking the right molars is termed “striking heaven’s lithophones” (ch’ui t’ien ch’ing

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then, that in the second line of the couplet quoted above Li Po should picture the imperial votaress ascending subsequently to the sky behind a brace of heaven-destined dragons. Fluid Aurora In the first of his hexad of poems on “Wandering on Mount T’ai,” Li Po receives from a group of celestial maidens a “cup of fluid aurora” (liu hsia pei 流霞杯).22 Such a drink was early noted by Wang Ch’ung 王充 (27–91) and later by Ko Hung 葛洪 (283–344) as having been offered to one Hsiang Man-tu 項曼都, when the latter paid a visit to the heavenly habitation of the “Transcendent Persons” (hsien jen 仙人); the drink reportedly had the power of banishing all hunger and thirst.23 As I have remarked elsewhere,24 one of the basic scriptures of Shang-ch’ing Taoism, The Purple Text of the Numinous Writ (Ling-shu tzu-wen 靈書紫文), contains a section detailing the proper procedures for obtaining this divine beverage.25 This passage affords us far more insight into the nectar’s qualities than do the bare references of Wang Ch’ung and Ko Hung. We learn from it that the “fluid aurora” is a pentachrome pneuma, a draught of solar essence which, when imbibed, suffuses one’s person with the energy of the sun. The correct technique for securing a drink of this liquor may be 槌天磬), also, when done 36 times, prophylactic against malign forces and of help in invoking awesome spirits. In virtually all visualization exercises recorded in the Tao tsang, mention is made of gnashing the teeth a certain number of times immediately before pronouncing the incantation that precedes the visualization itself. This is explained as effective in bringing to attention one’s corporal divinities. In a heavily Taoist passage in one of his poems Lu Chao-lin 盧照隣 (ca. 634–683?) declares. The Purple Writ—I peruse it every day; The pharmaka for cinnabar—how many years till completion? I clap the bell and sound the drum of heaven, Burn aromatics and subdue the wraiths of earth.  (Ch’üan T’ang shih 全唐詩 [Peking, 1960], 42.529.) The initially puzzling import of the third line of this excerpt takes on very clear meaning, when we understand the Taoist orchestration of the human body. 22  “Yu T’ai shan, liu shou,” No. 1, ltpcc, 20.447; lpccc, 20.1154–55. 23  See Lun heng 論衡 (Compendium of Discourses) (Shanghai, 1974), 24.1409; and Pao-p’u tzu nei-p’ien chiao-shih 抱樸子內篇校釋 (Peking, 1980), 20.321. 24  “Verses From on High,” 250–51. 25   Huang-t’ien shang-ch’ing chin-ch’üeh ti-chün ling-shu tzu-wen shang-ching 皇天上淸金 闕帝君靈書紫文上經 (hy 639; “Supreme Scripture of the Purple Text of the Numinous Writ, from the Lord Thearch of the Golden Pylons of Highest Clarity in the Resplendent Heavens), pp. 4a–6a.

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summarized as follows: look upon the sun just as it is rising in the east, clack your teeth nine times,26 and invoke the names of the sun’s hun-souls and the five high lords within the sun by silently repeating an incantation that goes Cloud-soul of sun, vermilion luminescence, Illuminant sheathe, verdant refulgence, Red Lad of revolving auroras, Shimmering simulacrum of mystic flame! This done, you must shut tight your eyes and actualize in thought (ts’un szu 存思) the five-colored fluid aurora from the sun descending over your body, down to your feet and back again to the top of your head. It will then pass into your mouth. A glittering figure made of purple pneumas—the essence of the aurora—will then appear and will also pass into your mouth. Having taken in the solar liquor, you must gulp down your own circulating pneuma forty-five times, swallow your saliva nine times, and chant in a low voice another, much longer incantation—after which you make a double bow to the sun, concluding the ritual. This practice should be carried out ten times monthly, at dawn on the first, third, fifth, seventh, ninth, thirteenth, fifteenth, seventeenth, nineteenth, and twenty-first days of the month. If performed diligently for eighteen years, it will result in the ultimate refinement of one’s physical form, enabling one to travel airborne through the vault of the sky. In the poem referred to above, Li Po is imparted a cup of fluid aurora by divine grace. The happy consequence of this is that, although he acknowledges he may not be fit material for transcendence, by the end of the piece he confidently declares Broad-ranging enough now to make the cosmos dwindle, I’ll leave this world behind, oh so far away! Elsewhere, lauding a certain Master White Down, i.e. Master Pekoe (Po-hao Tzu 白毫子), Li Po states that this lofty recluse “Privately pours a cup of fluid

26  Nine representing the number of “full yang,” in correspondence with the sun, the greatest symbol of yang energy (t’ai yang 太隔) in the sky.

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aurora.”27 In two other poems28 the solar potion becomes an elegant metaphor for fine wine—one assumes a pale rosé.29 The Barrier of Heaven The phrase t’ien kuan 天關, “Barrier of Heaven,” appears three times in Li Po’s poems, and commentators uniformly treat it as a casual kenning for the vast sky. However, for Taoist initiates the phrase denoted two specific astronomical referents. It was the secret name of the seventh and brightest star of the Great Dipper (at the tip of the handle, our Alkaid), one of the fiery deiforms constituting that most potent of all constellations. Even more importantly, it designated a discrete asterism—also referred to sometimes as the Heavenly Design (t’ien t’u 天圖) or the Triple Barrier (san kuan 三關)—which was an entranceway to the deathless realms of the highest heavens. A section of an early Highest Clarity scripture, called in short The Purple Writ of the Azure Crux, is devoted to the “Procedure for Spreading Open the Barrier of Heaven.”30 The text begins by identifying the Barrier of Heaven as “the Vital Gate (or Gate of Life) of the Nine Heavens; its sphere resides in the southeast corner of the Nine Heavens.” We then learn that It is the place that the host of Realized Ones (chen jen 眞人) traverse, through which the divine transcendents pass, and from which adepts [of the Tao] proceed. It is set off 5,000 li from the Golden Pylons31 and 7,000 li

27  “Po-hao Tzu ko,” ltpcc, 7.189; lpccc, 7.499. Earlier in the poem Master Pekoe is said to “sup at dawn on marrow from stone”—this a preparation of powdered calcite from stalactites in limestone grottoes, conceived as a rare emission flowing from within the rocks of sacred mountains. 28  “Pin ko hsing, shang Hsin-p’ing chang-shih hsiung Ts’an,” ltpcc, 7.184; lpccc, 7.486; and “Chiu jih,” ltpcc, 20.468; lpccc 20.1206. 29  The term “fluid aurora” appears with some frequency in T’ang verse, but its full significance seems to have been lost to later commentators—although not to the poets themselves. Li Po’s slightly older contemporary Meng Hao-jan 孟浩然 (689–740) makes particularly apt use of the term—blending its Taoist import and its metaphorical sense—in a poem written about a visit to the dwelling of a Taoist adept. The final couplet reads “Supposing youth’s countenance may be arrested—/ Why grudge getting drunk on fluid aurora?” (Meng Hao-jan chi 孟浩然集, 4.6b, sptk) Is the poet talking of quaffing the sun’s essence or about a good wine set before him at the moment? (For a translation of the whole poem, see Paul W. Kroll, Meng Hao-jan [Boston, 1981], 140.). 30   Tung-chen shang-ch’ing ch’ing-yao tzu-shu chin-ken chung-ching (hy 1304), 2.18b–23b. 31  See the following subsection for remarks about this celestial region.

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from the supernal palaces of Jade Clarity (Yü ch’ing 玉淸).32 If one is able to spread open the Triple Barrier, he may then immediately ascend on high to the Golden Pylons and saunter and feast in Jade Clarity.33 Following this, there is a detailed description of the Barrier itself and elaborate instructions about how to realize a passage through it.34 Only those who had crossed the Heavenly Barrier could be assured of having their name recorded in the fatidic rosters of immortality, certifying their celestial estate. It is hard not to believe that Li Po is being doctrinally precise in his verse when, in a poem we shall later consider at greater length, he states that the presiding spirit of holy Mount T’ai-po “grants to me a colloquy,/ And for my sake opens up the Barrier of Heaven!”35 Similarly, in a poem centering on the legendary leave-taking of the Yellow Thearch (Huang Ti 黃帝) from this world, the poet writes “Astride a dragon, scaling heaven, he attains the Barrier of Heaven.”36 And in another composition, when piously praising Li Heng 李亨 (pht. Su Tsung 肅宗, r. 756–762) for bringing order again to the nation, out of the chaos into which it had been cast by An Lu-shan’s rebellion, Li Po pictures the sovereign as a Taoist superman: Lifting high his feet, he trod Purple Tenuity; The Heavenly Barrier of its own accord gaped wide.37

32  The ultimate heaven of the triad known as the Three Clarities (viz., Greatest Clarity [T’ai ch’ing 太淸], Highest Clarity, and Jade Clarity), the divine inhabitants of which have never revealed themselves to our corruptible world. 33   h y 1304,2.18b. 34  See my article “Spreading Open the Barrier of Heaven,” forthcoming in Asiatische Studien (1985), for discussion and an annotated translation of the entire text. 35  “Teng T’ai-po feng,” ltpcc, 21.473; lpccc, 21.1219. 36  “Fei lung yin, erh shou,” No. 2, ltpcc, 3.91; lpccc, 3.232. For Huang Ti’s transformation in medieval times from a mythical “culture hero” to a Taoist Transcendent, see Lieh-hsien chuan, 1.2b–3a and especially the more lengthy Kuang Huang Ti pen-hsing chi 廣黃帝本 行記 (hy 290; Extensive Records of the Basic Deeds of the Yellow Thearch) and also the “Hsüan-yüan pen-chi” 軒轅本紀 (Basic Annals of Hsüan-yüan) preserved in Yün-chi ch’ich’ien, 100.2b–32a. 37  “Shang yün yüeh,” ltpcc, 3.103; lpccc, 3.259. “Purple Tenuity” (Tzu wei 紫微), a circumpolar constellation made up largely of the stars of our Draco, was the protecting wall of the residence of “Heaven’s Illustrious Great Theocrat” (T’ien huang ta ti 天皇大帝), high counterpart of the terrestrial god-king. Edward H. Schafer, Pacing the Void: T’ang Approaches to the Stars (Berkeley, 1977), 47.

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Thus the monarch of all below also exercises power over the starry kingdoms of space. The Golden Pylons Commentators are fond of explaining the phrase chin ch’üeh 金闕, “Golden Pylons,” as a simple variation of chin men 金門, “Gate of Gold,” a familiar reference in poetry to the imperial court; and on three occasions this is indeed the way Li Po employs the phrase.38 But the “Golden Pylons” is also the proper name of the paradise domain of Li Hung 李弘, Tao Lord and Latter-day Sage (hou-sheng tao-chün 後聖道君), who during the days of the apocalypse will gather to himself those saints and adepts fated to survive the destruction of the present world. The scripture mentioned above, which speaks at length about the Barrier of Heaven, also furnishes us with an account of the uranic Palace of the Golden Pylons. Four large gates open into the palace precincts, each gate flanked by a pair of pylons—the left one of gold, the right of jade—nine thousand rods high. Azure dragons and white tigers may be found about the pylons, which are further guarded by “heavenly creatures and giant serpents.” These portals enclose a compound 7,000 li in circumference. A portion of the ensuing description tells that Within [the palace compound] is the Purple Basilica of Golden Radiance and the Jade Chamber of the Rose-gem Abode. They are where the Latterday Sage, Thearchic Lord of the Golden Pylons, resides. Purple clouds shade the heights; verdant auroras surround the abode. Sun and moon, on either side, shed their glow, and divine candlelight shines diffusely. Jade maidens and golden Realized Ones scatter aromatics. The parvis in the void streams with light, and a wind drums from the Eight Murks. Mystic pennons flap and dance; banners overarch trees of jade. Highpitched tones [proceed] from sapphire branches, piping of their own accord with a hundred resoundings.39 Closely associated with Li Hung is the great divinity known as the Azure Lad (Ch’ing t’ung 靑童), one of whose epithets is “Supreme Minister of the Golden Pylons” (Chin-ch’üeh shang-hsiang 金闕上相). This important lord is essentially a solar deity of the orient dawn and represents symbolically the principle of 38  “Tseng Wei mi-shu Tzu-ch’un,” ltpcc, 9.234; lpccc, 9.615; “Chin men ta Su hsiu-ts’ai, ltpcc, 19.428; lpccc, 19.1107; “Chiang-nan ch’un huai,” ltpcc, 24.458; lpccc, 24.1416. 39   h y 1304, 2.16a.

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growth and enlightenment; he has his own paradise realm—the Azure Palace of the Square Speculum of Eastern Florescence (Tung-hua fang-chu ch’ingkung 東華方諸靑宫)—in the Eastern Sea.40 When, furthermore, we know that he is sometimes referred to as “the Jade Resplendent One” (Yü huang 玉皇),41 we have the final bit of information enabling us to understand what Li Po is getting at in a couplet that reads If we do not ramble on to the Golden Pylons, I imagine we shall be guests of the Jade Resplendent One.42 The poem in which these lines appear takes for topic the compounding of the Nine-cycled Elixir of the Grand Return (ta-huan chiu-chuan tan 大還九轉丹) and abounds in arcane allusions to the alchemical process of creating that storied concoction.43 In the lines quoted here, which come near the end of the poem, Li Po is declaring hopefully his belief that the successful manufacture of the elixir will result in the ascension of himself, and the Taoist friend to whom the poem is addressed, to the glorious paradise of Li Hung—or, at least, to the only slightly less exalted appanage of the Azure Lad. One suspects that the transcendent implications of the phrase “Golden Pylons” is also operating, at a metaphorical level, when Li Po elsewhere describes a section of Mount Lu 盧山 by saying “The Golden Pylons have opened before me—a screen between two peaks.”44 Finally, in two poems Li Po places golden pylons on the elysian seamounts of the eastern ocean. In one of these pieces, he says “The silver terraces and golden pylons seem as if in a dream”;45 in the other, “Turning for a time to 40  For details of which, see Paul W. Kroll, “In the Halls of the Azure Lad,” jaos 105.1 (1985), 75–94. 41  Ibid., 78. 42  “Ts’ao ch’uang ta-huan, tseng Liu Kuan-ti,” ltpcc, 10.261; lpccc, 10.691. 43  This elixir is also referred to in the fourth of Li Po’s group of “Olden Airs,” where he claims he is himself fabricating the “Purple River Carriage” (tzu ho ch’e 紫河車, this being the esoteric name for one stage in the firing process). “Ku-feng, wu-shih-chiu shou,” No. 4, ltpcc, 2.46; lpccc, 2.100. Stephen R. Bokenkamp’s unpublished paper, “Li Po’s Poems on Huang Shan,” typescript pp. 17–27, discusses at some length both of the poems concerning the Grand Return elixir. 44  “Lu shan yao, chi Lu shih-yü Hsü-chou,” ltpcc, 14. 328; lpccc, 14.863. The possible Taoist implications of the name here are enhanced by the fact that the poem ends with references to “Transcendent Persons,” “the Jade Capital” (for which, see next subsection), and the Heaven of “Greatest Clarity.” 45  “Teng kao ch’iu erh wang yüan-hai,” ltpcc, 4.110; lpccc, 4.283.

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Ying-chou, I shall visit the golden pylons.”46 Owing to an influential line in one of Kuo P’u’s 郭璞 (276–324) famous set of “Sauntering to Sylphdom” verses,47 terraces (t’ai 臺) of gold and silver appear often in medieval poems about the three paradise isles of P’eng-lai, Ying-chou, and Fang-chang. But Li Po’s pylons of gold surely exhibit in this context a reflected shimmer from the celestial palatinate of the grand deity Li Hung. The Jade Capital Although medieval Taoist cosmology admits of some variation in detail, according to different scriptures, the general outline of heavenly zones and spheres is tolerably clear.48 In the Taoist synthesis represented by the Ling-pao canonical tradition, the three hierarchically arranged (and perhaps concentric) heavens of Greatest Clarity, Highest Clarity, and Jade Clarity are surmounted—or rather, enclosed—by the Great Enveloping Heaven (Ta-lo t’ien 大羅天). The Jade Capital, or to be more exact, the Jade Capitoline Mountain (Yü-ching shan 玉京山) “is placed in the exact center of the highest heaven,” the focal point of the supreme enceinte known as the Mystic Metropolis (Hsüan tu 玄都). So states the mid-sixth century Taoist encyclopedia called The Secret Cruces Without Superior,49 which compendium also tells us that “at the time of completion of a Great Kalpa the divine scriptures of the Three Grottoes reside together in the midst [of the Jade Capitoline Mountain in the Great Enveloping Heaven], where calamities cannot reach them.”50 That is to say, it is in the Jade Capital that the timeless originals of the sacred celestial books are preserved, inviolate even from the disasters attendant upon the annihilation of the world. Thus when Li Po says of a Taoist priest, in a poem to be examined more closely later,

46  “Lu chün Yao tz’u, sung Tou ming-fu Po-hua huan hsi-ching,” ltpcc, 16.380; lpccc, 16.986. 47  “Yu hsien shih, shih-ssu shou,” No. 6, Ch’üan Chin shih 全晋詩, 5.7b (p. 562), in Ch’üan Han San-kuo Chin Nan-pei-ch’ao shih 全漢三國普南北朝詩 (Taipei, 1968). 48  For a lucid exposition of the designations of some of these realms, see Edward H. Schafer, “Cosmic Metaphors: The Poetry of Space,” Schafer Sinological Papers, No. 5 (11 March 1984; Text of the Faculty Research Lecture, delivered at the University of California, Berkeley, on 7 March 1984). 49   Wu-shang pi-yao 無上秘要 (hy 1130), 4.8a, citing Tung-hsüan yü-chüeh ching 洞玄玉 訣經. We are also informed a bit further on (4.8b–9a) of the ten different names by which the mountain is known to transcendent beings. 50  Ibid., 21.1a, citing Tung-hsüan ching 洞玄經.

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His disengaged heart is possessed of no “far” or “near”; For long it has resided poised in the Jade Capital.51 we understand that the cleric’s serene mind finds its true home in the unassailable shelter of the highest gods and holy writs. It is also on the Jade Capitoline Mountain, in the Mystic Metropolis, that the divinities of each of the ten directions of space52 assemble monthly (each group on a particular day and in a particular palace or estrade), to collate the heavenly texts that record the merits or faults of the men or specters over whom they have jurisdiction.53 And it is here too that, six times yearly, the entire concourse of deities assembles to do reverence to the numinous scriptures housed in the Jade Capital, in a procession complete with music and hymns.54 Li Po seems in one poem to catch a glimpse of this gathering, when he says Far off I see Transcendent Persons in the midst of prismatic clouds; Holding lotus flowers in their hands, they attend the levee at the Jade Capital.55 In another poem Li Po pays a Taoist friend a most flattering compliment, stating It is said as well that, to attend the levee in the heavens, you are proceeding to the Jade Capital.56 That is, the poet’s acquaintance is fit to join in the hallowed celebration of the gods. 51  “Feng chien Kao tsun-shih Ju-kuei tao-shih, ch’uan tao-lu pi, kuei Pei-hai,” ltpcc, 17.399; lpccc, 17.1032. 52  The four cardinal and four inter-cardinal directions, plus zenith and nadir. 53   Wu-shang pi-yao, 9.4a–11a, quoting Tung-hsüan yüan-shih wu-lao ch’ih-shu yü-p’ien ching 洞玄元始五老赤書玉篇經 (Scripture of the Jade Book in Red Writing of the Five Elders of Primal Commencement, from the Cavern of Mysteries), hy 22, 3.1a–5b. 54   h y 22, 2.8a. This procession is called “Pacing the Void” (pu hsü 歩虚); it is the prototype of the rituals of that name performed by devotees here below. For a full treatment of this topic, see Stephen R. Bokenkamp, “The ‘Pacing the Void’ Stanzas of the Ling-pao Scriptures,” M. A. thesis, University of California, Berkeley, 1981. 55  “Lu shan yao, chi Lu shih-yü Hsü-chou,” ltpcc, 14.328; lpccc, 14.863. 56  “Feng sheng p’ien,” ltpcc, 5.138; lpccc, 5.359. The best of Li Po’s editor-commentators Wang Ch’i 王琦 (1696–1774) thinks that “Jade Capital” is here merely a metaphor for the T’ang capital, Ch’ang-an. I cannot agree.

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This very precise use of the term “Jade Capital” may be seen also in the works of poets, such as Wang Wei 王維 (701–761) and Tu Fu 杜甫 (712–770), for example, who are not usually thought of as displaying any discernible leaning toward Taoist imagery in their verse.57 But this simply reminds us again that the imagery and vocabulary of the Taoist scriptures were common currency for virtually all the poets of T’ang, not only for the devout, and that we must make a special effort to recover this important segment of the poetic lexicon of medieval China. III

The Ordination Poems

A significant event in the spiritual life of the postulant was the receiving of a Taoist “register” (lu 籙). The register is a formal patent which certifies the holder as an initiate and verifies his place in the celestial bureaucracy; in this regard, it is a document of ordination. There are several different types and levels of register, but they all usually include—in varying calligraphically artistic forms—a catalogue of the divinities and Realized Ones with whom the adept is now supposed to be on familiar terms, able to invoke these superbeings out of the depths of the sky or (what is essentially the same thing) from out of the microcosm of his own body. A register may only be transferred to the initiate by an accredited Taoist master in a ceremonial ritual. We are told in the Sui shu 隋書: Those who accept the doctrine of the Way first receive the Register of the Text in 5,000 [Words] (五干文籙), then the Register of the Three Caverns (三洞籙), then the Register of the Cavern of Mysteries (洞玄籙), and then the Register of Highest Clarity (上淸籙). In every case the register is written on white silk. The names of the various celestial administrators and magistrates which are recorded, and [those of] their attached assistants and apparitors, are very numerous. There are also included various talismans placed as ornaments in the midst [of the lists of names and titles]. The composition of the text is selcouth and uncommon, not to be understood by the world. The recipient must first fast and purify himself, after which he presents one gold ring, together with various gifts and 57  See Tu Fu’s “Chi Han chien-i chu,” Tu shih hsiang-chu 杜詩詳注, annot. Ch’iu Chao-ao 仇兆鼇 (1638–1717) (Peking, 1979), 17.1508; and Wang Wei’s “Shuang huang-hao ko, sungpieh,” Wang Mo-chieh ch’üan-chi chu 王摩詰全集注, annot. Chao Tien-ch’eng 趙殿成 (1683–1756) (Taipei, 1966), 1.3, and “Feng ho sheng-chih ch’ing Hsüan-yüan huang-ti yühsiang chih tso ying-chih,” 11.151. Paul W. Kroll - 978-90-04-38020-2 Downloaded from Brill.com11/15/2020 06:09:18AM via San Francisco State University

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1857

d­ onatives, in order to have audience with the master. Accepting his donatives, the master transmits to him the register. At the same time, he cuts in two the gold ring, half to be kept by each of them, saying it is to be deemed [a symbol of] their covenant. The disciple takes possession of the register and, having bound it securely, suspends it from his belt.58 This ritual joins together master and disciple in a sacred contract, which is itself the earthly counterpart of the compact holding between the divine denizens of the Taoist heavens (and their revealed scriptures) and the worthy human devotee. Often the ritual also included transferral of holy scriptures from master to disciple—these texts themselves, which can be read by mortals, being but the mundane simulacra of the true, eternal scriptures composed in celestial script and enduring unprofaned in the heavens. Li Po, we know, participated in such a ritual in the late fall or winter of the year 744, following his two-year stay in Ch’ang-an. His ordination ceremony was held at the Palace of the Purple Culmen (Tzu-chi kung 紫極宫), in Ch’ichou 齊州, in the district of An-ling 安陵, county of P’ing-yüan 平原—about forty-five miles northwest of the present city of Chi-nan 濟南 in Shantung.59 He has left us two poems commemorating this event. One is a long poem of thirty-two lines, addressed to Kai Huan 蓋寰, the calligrapher who was responsible for writing out the register received by Li Po; the other is an eight-line composition in “regulated verse” addressed to the Taoist prelate Kao Ju-kuei 高如貴 who was the poet’s actual preceptor. Both poems are couched largely in the parlance of the insider: they are, we must remember, offerings from pupil to teacher, meant to inspire the approval and applause of Li Po’s religious betters. They are, in some measure, self-conscious displays of elite erudition. Neither poem (and especially the longer one) has been adequately handled by traditional commentators, who are silent about some of the more curious verses in these works.

58   Sui shu (The Documents of Sui) (Peking, 1973), 35.1092, in the bibliographic essay on Taoist writings. 59  So says Li Yang-ping 李陽冰, a paternal kinsman of the poet and editor of his works, in whose household Li Po was apparently residing at the time of his death, and who presumably had this information from Li Po himself. “Ts’ao-t’ang chi hsü,” ltpcc, 31.706; lpccc, “fu-lu,” 3.1789. The Palace of the Purple Culmen was one of many score of Taoist temples of that name, the establishment of which had been mandated throughout the nation by Hsüan Tsung in 741, to commemorate the wonderful revelations of the deified Lao Tzu that occurred in the final years of the K’ai-yüan 開元 period (and which also led to the change of era-name in 742 to T’ien-pao 天寶, “Heavenly Treasure”). The temples had originally been called “fanes” (miao 廟), but in 743 this was changed to “palace.” Paul W. Kroll - 978-90-04-38020-2 Downloaded from Brill.com11/15/2020 06:09:18AM via San Francisco State University

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We shall here attempt a closer reading of these poems, giving due attention to their peculiarities of diction and Taoist reference. The longer of the two is titled informatively “In Quest of the Tao in An-ling, I Met Kai Huan who Fashioned for me a Register of the Realized Ones; [This Poem] Left Behind as a Present When About to Depart.” It reads as follows:

Clear water gives a view of white rocks; Of Transcendent Persons, I am familiar with the Azure Lad. Kai, the Great Master of Peaceful Barrow (Anling), By his tenth year was in joint communication with Heaven.



His “precipitant stream” and, too, his subtle words— In conversation or discourse, how could they give out? He is able to command those paid two thousand piculs, Who clap him on the back, amazed at his divine acuity.



Flourishing his writing-brush, he presents a new poem, Of highest value throughout the land East of the Mountains. Even till today, a visitor to the Level Plain (P’ing-yüan) Is moved and incited, aspiring to his rarified manner.

4

8

12

I have studied the Way with the North Sea (Pei-hai) Transcendent, Who transmitted to me what was written in the Stamen and Pearl Palace. Within the cinnabar field I brought the Jade Pylons to completion; 16 In the white light of day I long for the cloudy emptiness.

For my sake you have drawn up a register of the Realized Ones; The persons of Heaven are abashed at your miraculous art. The Seven Primes penetrate [to me], unhindered in descent; 20 And the Eight Cantles now flash forth a starry nimbus!



The Three Disasters will be purged by Jade-cog and Armil; Lamia dragons will enfold the trifling husk of my body. Raising a hand, I shall renounce heaven and earth— 24 For the nullity of the void equates origin and end.



Yellow gold fills up the high halls, Yet satchels and sacks can in no way be stuffed. I laugh down at the gentlemen of the world, 28 Whose cloud-souls sink into Lo-feng in the north. Paul W. Kroll - 978-90-04-38020-2 Downloaded from Brill.com11/15/2020 06:09:18AM via San Francisco State University

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The cairns of the myriad-chariot lords from days of yore Are turned today into one entire sprouting of fleabane! —If the words I present may be deemed substantial, 32 Truly this will lighten my way over [Mounts] Hua and Sung.60 There is much in this poem that requires explanation. We may begin by noting the reference in line 2 to the Azure Lad, whom we have met earlier. He is one of the Taoist divinities most often implicated in the transmission of sacred scriptures, in the transferral of celestial knowledge, and it is fitting for Li Po to begin a poem on the topic of receiving a certificate of initiation with a mention of this helpful deity (whose name and title very likely figured prominently in the register itself; he stands out from the other transcendents like a white rock in clear water). After the opening couplet, the poet devotes the next ten lines to praise of the master calligrapher and Taoist adept Kai Huan. The “precipitant stream” (hsüan ho 懸河) of line 5 suggests Kai Huan’s skill in oral discussion, by means of a characterization once applied to the famous Chin dynasty scholar Kuo Hsiang 郭象 (d. 312), of whom it was said “When one hears Hsiang converse, it is like a precipitant stream draining its waters—gushing forth, it never dries up.”61 In line 6, “those paid two thousand piculs,” who are in awe of Huan, are the influential local officials of the P’ing-yüan area.62 In the fourth quatrain the poet himself reappears (this has been neatly prepared for by lines 11–12, the grateful “visitor” of which may well indicate the “aspiring” novice, Li Po). He claims for himself certain accomplishments in 60  “Fang tao An-ling, yü Kai Huan wei yü tsao chen-lu, lin-pieh liu-tseng,” ltpcc, 10.254; lpccc, 10.672–73. E. von Zach’s German rendering of this poem (“Lit’aipo’s Gedichte, X. Buch,” Asia Major 5 [1930], 82–83) is generally an acceptable paraphrase. But it unfortunately bleeds away much of the original imagery, offers no explication of difficult lines, and badly misconstrues or mistranslates several verses (especially lines 2, 14, 15, 19–20, 23, 32). 61   Chin shu 晋書 (The Documents of Chin) (Peking, 1974), 50.1396–97; also Shih-shuo hsinyü 世說新語 (New Colloquies of Tales of the World), 2B.2b, sptk. The same words were used by Chang Yüeh 張說 (667–731) in the early eighth century to commend the verbal fullness of Yang Chiung’s 楊炯 (650–694?) writing. See Chiu T’ang shu 舊唐書 (The Old “Documents of T’ang”) (Peking, 1975), 190A.5003. There was also a Wang Hsüan-ho 王懸河, Wang “Precipitant Stream,” who compiled the two seventh-century Taoist encyclopediae San-tung chu-nang 三洞珠囊 (hy 1131; Jewelled Satchel of the Three Caverns) and Shang-ch’ing tao lei-shih hsiang 上淸道類事相 (hy 1124; Categorical Repertory of Materials on the Tao of Highest Clarity). 62  The most important local officials in Han times were, at least in theory, paid a salary of 2,000 piculs of grain. The phrase “two thousand piculs” hence came to connote the highest of the provincial bureaucracy. Paul W. Kroll - 978-90-04-38020-2 Downloaded from Brill.com11/15/2020 06:09:18AM via San Francisco State University

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his pursuit of the Way, owing to the tutoring of the Taoist master of Pei-hai County—that is, Kao Ju-kuei, who is identified exactly in the second poem we will discuss. Li Po was apparently instructed by Master Kao in the interpretation of the Huang-t’ing ching, this being, as we have seen in section two of this paper, the sacred text that “was written in the Stamen and Pearl Palace.” Line 15 refers to the poet’s practice of the techniques of breath control, refining the vital pneuma of his corporal frame. The “cinnabar field” (tan t’ien 丹田) is one of the key loci of interior alchemy; here the poet must have in mind the “lower” cinnabar field, found three inches below the navel.63 As for the “Jade Pylons” (yü ch’üeh 玉闕), a couplet from the ninth stanza of the Huang-t’ing ching reveals that The palace of the sector of the lungs resembles a floriate canopy; Beneath it there is a young lad, seated on the Jade Pylons. Liang Ch’iu-tzu 梁丘子, an important early eighth-century commentator on the Yellow Court Scripture notes that the “Jade Pylons” betoken the white pneuma of the kidneys, joined to the lungs above.64 Having brought this inner energy-force “to completion,” the poet yearns in the next line to ascend bodily to the heavens “in the white light of day,” as the most sublime Transcendent Ones have done. With line 17, beginning the second half of the poem, Li Po enters on the celebration of the great event itself, the receiving of the register, which marks the culmination of his studies under Kao Ju-kuei and which also represents the perfection of Kai Huan’s calligraphic skill. Line 19 refers to the powerful charm known as the “Design of the Unhindered Descent of the Seven Primes” (ch’iyüan huo-lo t’u 七元豁落圖). This talisman—no doubt included in the text of the bestowed register—enlists for the aid of the adept the salvific powers of the seven visible stars of the Northern Dipper (or, alternatively, the powers of sun, moon, and the five visible planets). Possessed of this sidereal periapt, one will be able to subdue the demons emanating from the dread Six Palaces of the North (the “Lo-feng” of line 28, see below) and preserve oneself from 63  There are three “cinnabar fields.” The other two, “upper” and “middle,” are located in the head and in the heart. 64   Shang-ch’ing huang-t’ing nei-ching ching 上淸黃庭內景經, in Yün-chi ch’i-ch’ien, 11.25b. Liang Ch’iu-tzu is the sobriquet of Po Lü-chung 白履忠 (fl. ca. 722). Although this commentary is attributed in Yün-chi ch’i-ch’ien to Wu Ch’eng-tzu 務成子, it is—from the third stanza (11.14b) on—the work of Po Lü-chung, identical to that preserved and credited to him in chapters 55 through 57 of the Hsiu-chen shih-shu 修眞十書 (hy 263; Ten Writs on Refining to Realization). Paul W. Kroll - 978-90-04-38020-2 Downloaded from Brill.com11/15/2020 06:09:18AM via San Francisco State University

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the tortures of that infernal region.65 In line 20 the poet pictures to himself the primordial celestial characters in which the heavenly writs were prototypically composed: they radiate a blinding octagonal light which even the Transcendents cannot look upon.66 Continuing in the next couplet (lines 21–22) his declaration of the boons accruing to him through his investiture, Li Po devises a pair of lines the precise references of which have long bewildered critics. Their exact meaning can indeed be understood. But to do so we must look rather closely at certain passages in two medieval scriptures. Now, “Jade-cog” (hsüan 璿) and “Armil” (chi 璣)67 are the standard names for the second and third stars, respectively, of the Dipper; and sometimes the two words form a compound used to indicate the group of four stars that form the bowl of the Dipper.68 As we know, the Dipper is the most potent of constellations. To be able to invoke and control the divinities of its individual stars is to be able to command one’s heavenly fate and ensure oneself everlasting life.69 With the exception of the seventh star (the “Barrier of Heaven”), “Jade-cog and Armil” seem perhaps somewhat more puissant than the others.70 Certainly that appears to be so for Li Po, who could easily have used the bisyllabic general term “Northern Dipper” (pei tou 北斗) in his line, had he not wished specially to highlight “Jade-cog and Armil.” Indeed, one sacred text states that the astral deity “Jade-cog and Armil” (apparently denoting a single star, as in the passage to be quoted in the next paragraph below) “is the suzerain of the Northern

65  On this talisman, see Edward H. Schafer, “Li Po’s Star Power,” Society for the Study of Chinese Religions Bulletin 6 (1978), 5–15; also I. Robinet, “Randonnées extatiques des taoistes dans les astres,” Monumenta Serica 32 (1976), 271–73. 66   Sui shu, 35.1092. 67  Or more precisely, “Heaven’s Jade-cog” (t’ien-hsüan 天璿) and “Heaven’s Armil” (t’ien-chi 天璣). 68  One finds this usage particularly in the “weft” texts (wei 緯) of the Han dynasty. The employment of the bowl of the Dipper as a stellated protective headgear for the adept is common in medieval Taoist scriptures. 69  See Robinet, Méditation taoiste, 298–328, esp. 314–23, for discussion of the Taoist’s relations with, and use of, the Dipper, as well as the symbolic values of the constellation. 70  We may note, for example, the separate mention of their names in the canonical Scripture on Summoning the Different Grades of Demons by Jade-cog and Armil of the Seven Primes (Ch’i-yüan hsuan-chi chao mo-p’in ching 七元璇璣召魔品經). In this text (hy 1406) the seven Realized Lords of the Dipper report to the Five Ancient High Illustrious Ones (Wu lao shang-huang 五老上皇) on the technique for using astral essences to quell demons and malefic spirits; use of the Talisman of Unhindered Descent is advised, inter alia. Paul W. Kroll - 978-90-04-38020-2 Downloaded from Brill.com11/15/2020 06:09:18AM via San Francisco State University

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Dipper, Heaven’s great baron and king, ruling and constraining the 12,000 divinities, and maintaining the fatidic rosters of men.”71 In his verse Li Po seems to have been influenced, to begin with, by the important text known as the Shang-ch’ing t’ien-kuan san-t’u ching 上淸天關三圖經 (Scripture of the Three Designs of the Heavenly Barrier, from Highest Clarity), a late fourth or early fifth century revelation, the first part of which deals with a technique for actualizing the attendant lords of the Dipper’s seven stars, for apotropaic purposes. This scripture denotes the fourth star of the Dipper by the name “Jade-cog and Armil.”72 The adept is instructed to envisage the cloud-souls and elemental essences of Jade-cog and Armil, Occult Tenebrity, Heaven’s Balance-weight,73 the Nine Lords of the Highest Barrens, all garbed in volant skirts of purple brocade, with caps of the mystic dawn placed on their heads. Make them descend from amid the mysterious Dipper into your own person. Then, make incantation, saying: Cloud-souls and elemental essences of Jade-cog and Armil, Of Occult Tenebrity, of Heaven’s Balance-weight, Nine Lords of the Highest Barrens, By integral conjunction and a myriad permutations, Be made into a single divinity. Shift and measure out the Seven Stars for my sake, Fill up and block the Gate of Ghosts, Stop up and block the pneuma of death, Make the Northern Dipper revolve on its mysterious pivot, Measure out the breath of life in the Latency of the West,74 Keep me apart from the North’s god-king in Feng-tu, Let me gain a name inscribed in the casements of the south.75 71   T’ai-shang Lao chün chung-ching 太上老君中經 (hy 1160; Inner Scripture of Lord Lao the Most High), 1.9a; also quoted in Yün-chi ch’i-ch’ien, 18.9a. This text also states that the dwelling spot in the human body of Jade-cog and Armil is the navel. 72  The second and third stars are named, as usual, “Heaven’s Jade-cog” and “Heaven’s Armil.” 73  “Occult Tenebrity” (hsüan ming 玄冥) and “Heaven’s Balance-weight” (t’ien ch’üan 天權) are other names for star #4. 74  “Latency of the West” is hsi k’un 西坤, directionally the northwest, epitome of yin, housing the seed of yang within it. 75   h y 1355, pp. 4b–5a. The rotas of immortality are kept in the (casements of the) south, at the Gate of Life.

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But what have “Jade-cog and Armil” to do with the “Three Disasters” (san tsai 三災), and what are these latter? They are the cataclysmic calamities of wind (tempest), fire (conflagration), and water (flood) that will accompany the end of the world at the close of this kalpa—the concept is taken over from Buddhist notions of the apocalypse. “Jade-cog and Armil,” according to another scripture, has the power to summon forth, and thereby the power to control, the transitional stage between kalpas.76 Mastery over the Dipper, including mastery over the mighty star “Jade-cog and Armil,” will suffice to bring one safely through the epochal catastrophes. Li Po is suggesting that he has now acquired this mastery. To understand the second line of the couplet in question, we must be familiar with a different text, namely the T’ai-shang tung-hsüan ling-pao ch’ihshu yü-chüeh miao-ching 太上洞玄靈寶赤書玉訣妙經 (Marvelous Scripture of the Jade Acroama of the Red Writ of Numen and Gem, from the Cavern of Mysteries of the Most High). This work, one of the original scriptures of the Ling-pao canon, is an apocalyptic text composed of incantations to the divine kings of each of the five directions, to the stars of each direction, the mountains, and the waters. Particularly important for us—and for Li Po in this particular verse—is the section concerned with the supplication of the waters. We are told here that the one way to avoid the dreadful flood that will overwhelm the world at the end of the kalpa is to inscribe the incantation revealed in this text on blue paper, with yellow ink, and to cast it into the waters. This done, one will acquire the services of a “lamia dragon” (chiao lung 蛟龍) who will bear one away safely on its back, at the final deluge.77 Esoteric as these allusions may seem to us now, Li Po fully expected the Taoist recipient of the poem, Kai Huan, to apprehend them rightly and to appreciate their intricate wording. This rather complex pair of lines, emphasizing the poet’s newly won immunity from the ultimate forces of destruction, leads logically to his subsequent renunciation of the things of this world. All distinctions between supposed opposites appear false to him now, and the habitual hoarding of wealth and valuables especially seems a worthless show. Realizing this, he can laugh with cosmic disdain at those whose profane actions ensure their spiritual damnation in the depths of Lo-feng. Lo-feng 羅酆 is the fearsome judgment place and prison of the Six Heavens in the North. Also referred to as Feng-tu 酆都, 76   T’ai-shang fei-hsing chiu-ch’en yü-ching 太上飛行九晨玉經 (hy 428; Jade Scripture of the Airborne March along the Nine Nitors [of the Dipper], from the Most High), p. 1b; also quoted in Yün-chi ch’i-ch’ien, 20.2a. 77   h y 352, 1.9a/b, 1.11a, 1.15b; also quoted in Wu-shang pi-yao, 24.9b, 24.10b, 24.14b.

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or more graphically as the Citadel of Lasting Night (Ch’ang-yeh ch’eng 長夜城, it is a domain of ghosts and demons, the spirits of the unholy dead. Located in the north, it is consequently a dark and dank empire.78 The “cloud-souls” (hun 魂) of the profane, which should properly return at death to their original, airy home in the sky, are here seen by Li Po to “sink” (ch’en 沉) into the damp dungeons of Lo-feng, never to be cleansed and perfected. The poet is conscious that he himself, on the other hand, has now become enfranchised as one of the elect. And he accordingly perceives the folly of those temporal rulers who think to conquer time and oblivion through rearing imposing burial mounds as monuments—futile markers that are soon overgrown with weeds. In the concluding couplet of the piece, Li Po expresses his hope for Kai Huan’s approval of his words, which will sustain him in his mystical extravagation to the holy alps Hua 華山 and Sung 嵩山, ascension of these peaks symbolizing withdrawal from the moils of mundane activity. The poem is a well-balanced and enthusiastic commemoration of the author’s formalized status in the faith, drawing at least partially on language and lore known only to other students of the sacred books. The second poem indited by Li Po to celebrate his ordination is addressed, as mentioned already, to the Taoist master who directd the ritual and bestowed the consecrated register on the poet. It is titled “Upon his Returning Home to Pei-hai, I Respectfully Offer a Farewell Banquet to Reverend Master Kao Jukuei, Gentleman of the Tao, After He Transmitted to Me a Register of the Way.”

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The Way is hidden, not able to be seen; The numinous writings are stored in the grotto heavens. The master who is mine, after four myriads of kalpas, One age following another, has transmitted and passed them down. Departing, he leaves behind a staff of green bamboo; Singing as he goes, he treads the purple haze. His disengaged heart is possessed of no “far” or “near”; For long it has resided poised in the Jade Capital.79

78  In the system of wu-hsing 五行 correspondences, the North correlates symbolically with water and with the color black. See Chen kao 眞誥 (hy 1010; Entitlements of the Realized Ones), 15. 1a–4b, for more extensive comments about Lo-feng. 79  “Feng chien Kao tsun-shih Ju-kuei tao-shih, ch’uan tao-lu pi, kuei Pei-hai,” ltpcc, 17.399; lpccc, 17.1032. E. von Zach, “Lit’aipo’s Poetische Werke,” Deutsche Wacht 1930.23, p. 26, has a German version of the poem, but von Zach stumbles badly over the final couplet, and of course he provides no discussion or interpretation of the work.

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This is a more sedate effort than the preceding and does not demand quite as much of us in the way of arcane learning. Opening with a bald statement regarding the dighel nature of the Tao,80 the poet proceeds in line 2 to remark the inaccessibility of the scriptures which he here portrays as cached in the “grotto heavens” (tung t’ien 洞天)—the hollow worlds, each a discrete universe complete with its own sky, sun, moon, and stars, that spread out below the sacred mountains of the Taoists.81 It is these scriptures, the successive transferrals of which may take place only once in countless eons, that Kao Ju-kuei has revealed to his pupil Li Po.82 In the fifth line of the poem, Li Po pictures his master in terms of Fei Ch’ang-fang 費長房, an adept of the Latter Han dynasty, who made use of a green bamboo cut exactly to his height to effect his departure from the everyday world. When the bamboo was hung from a tree behind his house, it took on the semblance of Fei’s corpse. Amid great lamentation his family members took down the suspended corpse-bamboo and interred it, no one noticing the real Fei who watched alongside (his body had become purified of corporeal dross). He then went off to accompany his occult teacher into the mountains.83 Li Po has Kao Ju-kuei leaving behind a bamboo staff, 80  Alluding to the statement in Chuang tzu: “The Way is not able to be seen; if seen, that is not it.” Chuang tzu chi-shih 莊子集釋 (Taipei, 1971), 22.330. This first line of the poem is given added emphasis by all five syllables being in deflected tones—a consciously unusual effect in a lü-shih. 81  For more on which, see particularly Michel Soymié, “Le Lo-feou chan; étude de géographie réligieuse,” Bulletin de l’École française d’Extrême-Orient 48 (1954), 88–93; and Schafer, Pacing the Void, 249–54. 82  Wang Ch’i’s scholium to line 3 (ltpcc, 17.399) gives a long quotation, purportedly from the T’ai-p’ing yü-lan, at the end of which mention is made of transmitting the sacred texts stored in the Mystic Metropolis once every 40,000 kalpas. But I find only the first part of Wang Ch’i’s quotation in T’ai-p’ing yü-lan (676.5a and 672.2b), and the Taoist text it supposedly quotes, the Hou-sheng tao-chün lieh-chi 後聖道君列紀 (hy 442; Arranged Annals of the Latter-day Sage, Lord of the Tao) does not contain the relevant portion of Wang’s quotation either. Note, however, the statement to be found in the Tun-huang manuscript (Pelliot 2861) of the Table of Contents of the Wu-shang pi-yao that “The Treasure Scriptures are hidden and secret and are brought down for explication [only] at divergent times; the Numinous Writings are mysterious and marvelous, and are suitable for sight [only] in varying kalpas.” See John Lagerwey, Wu-shang pi-yao; somme taoiste du VI e siècle (Paris, 1981), 58–59. 83   Hou Han shu 後漢書 (Documents of the Latter Han) (Peking, 1965), 82B.2743. Fei’s biography has been translated in Ngo Van Xuyet, Divination, magie et politique; essai suivi de la traduction des “Biographies des Magiciens” tirées de l’ “Histoire des Han postérieurs” (Paris, 1976), 128–34. Fei Ch’ang-fang employs the bamboo as a false corpse, so as to allow his family to carry out properly the mourning rituals; they would not be able to do so, if

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emblematic of his terrestrial form,84 while his true being goes off, back to his celestial home, borne on a “purple haze” (tzu yin 紫烟) from the mystic reaches of the sky. And it is, avers the poet, none other than the cosmic mountain of the Jade Capital—where the highest gods and texts reside (see above)—that is Master Kao’s established dwelling place and destination. Li Po offers thus both a conventional poem of farewell and an encomiastic tribute to his revered mentor. IV

T’ai-po on T’ai-po

In a writer as conscious as Li Po of the exact attributes and dispositions of words, the knowledge that a prominent feature of the natural landscape bore the same name as he did must certainly have provoked a measure of linguistic—and perhaps even emotive—sympathy. I refer of course to the mountain known as T’ai-po 太白, or “Grand White,” an epithet that was also the cognomen of Li Po himself. We are told by the poet’s kinsman Li Yangping that on the night Li Po was delivered his mother dreamt she was visited by the moving star (or planet) called T’ai-po (our Venus); hence the baby was bestowed the given name Po, “White,” and the cognomen T’ai-po, “Grand White.”85 Later in life the poet was fancifully regarded by some contemporaries as the “essential spirit” (ching 精) of that star.86 Mount T’ai-po, in Wu-kung 武功 township (present-day Mei 郿 district, in Shensi), on the westernmost spur of the Chung-nan 終南 range, was clearly the alpine doppelgänger of the star and provided an earthly communication point with it. Indeed, one medieval text states unequivocally that the mountain contained the elemental essence of the star, fallen to earth.87 This sidereal essence manifested itself as he simply and suddenly disappeared. Ko Hung cites Fei Ch’ang-fang’s case as a notable instance of “deliverance from the corpse” (shih-chieh 尸解); see Pao-p’u tzu nei-p’ien chiao-shih, 2.18–19. On this concept and practice, consult I. Robinet, “Metamorphosis and Deliverance from the Corpse,” History of Religions 18 (1979), 37–70. 84  See Rolf Stein, “Jardins en miniature d’extrême-orient,” Bulletin de l’École française d’Extrême-Orient 42 (1942), 89, for more on the bamboo as a botanical effigy of the Taoist adept. 85  “Ts’ao-tang chi hsü,” ltpcc, 31.705; lpccc, “fu-lu,” 3.1789. 86  According to the tenth-century T’ang chih-yen 唐摭言 (Picked-up Words of T’ang) (Shanghai, 1978), 7.81, it was Ho Chih-chang 賀知章 (659–744) who first pronounced this identification. Ho is also credited as being the one to dub Li Po an “ostracized Transcendent” (che hsien 謫仙). 87   T’ai-p’ing kuang-chi, 398.829c, quoting Lu-i chi 録異記 (Records of Tabulated Peculiarities).

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the lovely white stone slabs, resembling fine jade, that were miraculously discovered on T’ai-po Shan in 742 and out of which the emperor ordered carved a 20-foot tall image of Lao Tzu, plus flanking statues of himself and two of his high ministers, to be erected in the temple devoted to the deified Lao Tzu in Ch’ang-an.88 The great Taoist teacher and cleric Ssu-ma Ch’eng-chen 司馬承禎 (647–735), “patriarch” of the Shang-ch’ing sect in the early eighth century,89 recorded that Mount T’ai-po concealed the eleventh of the 36 “lesser grotto-heavens”;90 it was thus an undeniable locus of sacrality. It had, moreover, been the favored retreat of several early T’ang recluses, alchemists, and adepts—most notably Sun Ssu-miao 孫思邈 (?581–682?)91 and T’ien Yu-yen 田遊巖 (fl. ca. 680).92 But Li Po seems to have been the first writer to portray the mountain in verse.93 He has left us two marvelous poems that are set on T’ai-po Shan. In both of them 88  Ibid., and also T’ang hui-yao 唐會要 (Assembled Cruces of T’ang) (Taipei, 1974), 50.865. The two ministers so honored were Li Lin-fu 李林甫 and Ch’en Hsi-lieh 陳希烈, although after Li Lin-fu’s death and posthumous disgrace, the face of his statue was recut in the likeness of his successor Yang Kuo-chung 楊國忠. 89  Li Po stated that Ssu-ma Ch’eng-chen declared he recognized in him “the air of a Transcendent and the osseous embodiment of the Tao,” when, as a young man, Li Po met Ch’eng-chen. See the poet’s preface to his “Ta p’eng fu,” ltpcc, 1.1; lpccc, 1.1 (text fully translated and annotated in Paul W. Kroll, “Li Po’s Rhapsody on the Great P’eng-bird,” Journal of Chinese Religions 12 [1984], 1–17). Ch’eng-chen was most influential in turning Hsüan Tsung’s interest to the mysteries of Taoism in the mid-720s. For more information on this powerful priest, see Ch’en Kuo-fu 陳國符 Tao-tsang yüan-liu k’ao 道藏源流考 (rev. ed., Taipei, 1975), 52–59; Paul W. Kroll, “Szu-ma Ch’eng-chen in T’ang Verse,” Society for the Study of Chinese Religions Bulletin 6 (1978), 16–30; Kroll, “Notes on Three Taoist Figures of the T’ang Dynasty,” 19–22; and, most completely, J. Russell Kirkland, “Taoists of the High T’ang: An Inquiry into the Perceived Significance of Eminent Taoists in Medieval Chinese Society,” Ph.D. diss., Indiana University, 1985, pp. 55–168. 90  Ssu-ma Ch’eng-chen, “T’ien-ti kung-fu t’u” 天地宫府圖 (The Palaces and Archives of Heaven and Earth, Illustrated), in Yün-chi ch’i-ch’ien, 27.5a. Ssu-ma Ch’eng-chen’s list is the basis for that in Tu Kuang-t’ing’s famous Tung-t’ien fu-ti yüeh tu ming-shan 洞天福 地嶽凟名山記 (hy 599; Record of the Grotto Heavens, Favored Lands, Marchmounts, Conduits, and Notable Mountains). In Tu’s list, however, “T’ai-po” is miswritten as “Fangpo” 方白. 91   Chiu T’ang shu, 191.5094; Hsin T’ang shu 新唐書 (The New “Documents of T’ang”) (Peking, 1975), 196.5596. 92   Chiu T’ang shu, 192.5117; Hsin T’ang shu, 196.5598. 93  His are the earliest poems about the peak cited in Ku-chin t’u-shu chi-ch’eng 古今圖書集 成 (1726 ed.), ts’e 189 (“Shan ch’uan tien,” ch. 75), p. 37a, which quotes only two other T’ang poems on Mount T’ai-po—one by Ts’en Shen 岑參 (715–770?) and one by Ch’ang Chien 常建 (fl. 750).

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the mountain is an epiphanic site, where the poet is confirmed in his yearning for supramundane existence.94 Because, in order to appreciate Li Po’s verbal craft, we will need to attend even more closely in these poems than we have in the others to prosodic niceties, I include a Middle Chinese transcription of each poem and a chart of its tonal pattern, following the translation.95

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Climbing T’ai-po’s Peak To the west I ascend the peak of Grand White— In dusky sunlight finish with my scrambling and climbing. Grand White grants to me a colloquy, And for my sake opens up the Barrier of Heaven! I will mount the cooling wind and be gone— Breaking straight out through the floating clouds. Lifting my hand, I may draw near the moon; Proceeding onward, as if there is no mountain now! Once parted and gone away from Wu-kung, What time would I come back here again?96

1. 西 上 太 白 sei zhang: t’ai- păk 2. 夕 陽 窮 登 zyek yang gyung tĕng 3. 太 白 與 我 t’ai- păk yo: nga: 4. 爲 我 開 天 wiĕ- nga: k’ai t’en 5. 願 乘 冷 風 nghwan- jĕng lăng pyung 6. 直 出 浮 雲 dyĕk ts’ywit byou ywĕn 7. 舉 手 可 近 kyo: shou: k’a: gyĕn-

峰

byong OX XXO 攀

p’ăn

語

XO OOOr

ngyo: XX XXX

關

kwăn XX OOOr 去

k’yo-

XO OOX

間

kăn

XX OOOr

月

ngywăt XX XXX

94  This is a regular, but still little explored, motif in medieval verse. See Kroll, “Verses From on High: The Ascent of T’ai Shan,” passim. 95  The transcription system is that of E. H. Schafer, as outlined in his The Vermilion Bird: T’ang Images of the South (Berkeley, 1967), 267–69. In the tone charts, O stands for the level tone, X for deflected tones. 96  “Teng T’ai-po feng,” ltpcc, 21.473; lpccc, 21.1219. A German rendering by von Zach exists in his “Lit’aipo’s Poetische Werke,” Deutsche Wacht, 1931.9, p. 23. A brief commentary on the poem is to be found in Takebe Toshio 武部利男, Ri Haku 李白 (Tokyo, 1973), 146–49. Paul W. Kroll - 978-90-04-38020-2 Downloaded from Brill.com11/15/2020 06:09:18AM via San Francisco State University

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8. 前 dzen 9. ー it 10. 何 gha

行

若

無

山

ghăng nhak myu srăn 別

武

功

OO XOOr

去

byet myu: kung k’yo- XX XOX 時

復

更

還

zhi

byuk kang- ghwăn OO XXOr

It is not only an ascent of Mount T’ai-po that is related here; more importantly to the poet, it is an ascent to transcendence. The physical climb itself is of little moment: it is completed in the twilight gloaming of the second line. Then the true ascent begins. The poet is accorded conversation with the mountain itself—or is it with the star after which the peak is named? But in fact there is no real distinction between the two. The singularity of this occurrence is accented by the third line’s steady string of words in deflected tones. The wonderful consequence of this interview is the opening, for the poet, of the Barrier of Heaven, giving access to the avenues of the sky (see above).97 And we note how this entry into the supernal districts is phonetically distinguished from what came before—three successive level-tone words triumphantly capping the seven deflected-tone words (the five words of line 3 and the first two of line 4) preceding. With the second stanza the poet is released into the upper world, indifferently harnessing the wind, after the manner of the legendary Lieh Tzu,98 wafted away, through and out of the clouds—“floating clouds” has here a collateral sense, referring to the flimsy scuddings of mortal life, from which the poet has now broken away. He is propelled close enough to the moon that he may touch it with his hand. (This striking image in the third line of the stanza is emphasized, just as was the third line of the first stanza, by the fact that the verse is entirely constituted of deflected-tone words.) Now the poet has lost all connection with the mountain itself, which seems to have disappeared behind him. In the final couplet, he asserts his disinclination ever to return to that sublunary world in which the physical mountain exists—symbolized by the county of Wu-kung, geographical locale of T’ai-po Shan. One suspects, too, that Li Po may be revivifying in this context the semantic import of the district’s name, “Martial Accomplishment”—a range of activity that also is meaningless to him now. This conclusion is a clever variation of one of the customary 97  It may be of value to recall here that, in the somatic microcosm, according to Po Lüchung’s commentary on the Huang-t’ing nei-ching (in Yün-chi ch’i-ch’ien, 11.37b), the Heavenly Barrier is the mouth. It is thus very appropriate for the poet to have an unwonted act of speech preface the opening of the macrocosmic Barrier. 98   Chuang tzu chi-shih, 1.10. Paul W. Kroll - 978-90-04-38020-2 Downloaded from Brill.com11/15/2020 06:09:18AM via San Francisco State University

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endings of poems on famous sites—the sad sigh over when the poet will again visit the lovely spot. But Li Po, risen now into a higher zone, recoils from the thought of descending to this world again; we read the last line as a contented, almost defiant, exclamation of relief. Li Po’s other poem on T’ai-po, while sharing the same general theme as the preceding poem, is as we shall see a somewhat more involved composition. It is the fifth of his series of 59 “Olden Airs” and reads as follows:

Grand White—so mottled misted-green! The starry chronograms in thickset ranks above it. Three hundred li away from heaven, Aloof like this, it is sundered from the world.



In its midst there is a green-faxed gaffer; Cloaked in clouds, he lounges with the pines and snow. He does not laugh, does not converse either; His tenebrous roost is located in a rugged cave.



I have come—and happen on the Realized Person; Kneeling long, I ask for his treasured acroama. So resplendent—he suddenly smiles freely at me, For conferral, takes up an exposition on refining drugs.



16

I shall transmit those remarks, engraved on my bones; Raising up his person, now he is gone in a lightning-flash! Lifting my gaze far away, I cannot catch up to him: In hazy state, my five emotions are inflamed.



—But it is I in future who will devise cinnabar granules, And forever be separated from the persons of this world!99

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1. 太 t’ai- 2. 星 seng

păk gha ts’ang ts’ang XX OOO 辰 上 森 列 zhin zhang: sryem lyet OO XOXr 白

何

蒼

蒼

99  “Ku feng, wu-shih-chiu shou,” No. 5, ltpcc, 2.46–47; lpccc, 2.102. Von Zach’s version, which has minor errors in lines 5 and 9, is in his “Lit’aipo’s archaistische Allegorien (Ges. Werke. Buch II),” Asia Major 1 (1924), 494–95. Takebe, op. cit., 149–55, offers a commentary heavily reliant on quotations from Pao-p’u tzu, many of which are only tangentially relevant. Paul W. Kroll - 978-90-04-38020-2 Downloaded from Brill.com11/15/2020 06:09:18AM via San Francisco State University

Li Po ’ s Transcendent Diction

1871

3. 去 天 三 百 里 k’yo- t’en sam păk li: XO OXX 4. 邈 爾 與 世 絶 mauk nhië: yo: shei- dzywet XX XXXr 5. 中 有 綠 髮 翁 tyung you: lyok pywăt ung OX XXO 6. 披 雲 臥 松 雪 p’iĕ ywĕn ngwa- zyong sywet OO XOXr 7. 不 笑 亦 不 語 pyeu: syeu- yek pyeu: ngyo: XX XXX 8. 冥 棲 在 巖 穴 meng sei dzai- ngăm ghwet OO XOXr 9. 我 來 逢 眞 人 nga: lai byong chin nhin XO OOO 10. 長 跪 問 寶 訣 dyang gwiĕ mywen- pau: kwet OO XXXr 11. 粲 然 忽 自 哂 ts’an- nhen hwĕt dzi- shin:100 XO XXX 12. 授 以 鍊 藥 說 zhou- i: len- yak shwet XX XXXr 13. 銘 骨 傳 其 語 meng kwĕt dywen k’i ngyo: OX OOX 14. 竦 身 已 電 滅 syong: shin i: den- myet XO XXXr 15. 仰 望 不 可 及 ngyăng: mywang- pyeu: k’a: gyĕp XX XXX 16. 蒼 然 五 情 熱 ts’ang nhen ngu: dzyeng nhet OO XOXr 17. 吾 將 營 丹 砂 ngu tsyang yweng tan sră OO OOO 18. 永 與 世 人 別 ywang: yo: shei- nhin byet101 XX XOXr 100  I accept the reading of this line given in the Sung dynasty and Miao Yüeh-ch’i editions of the text, rather than that in Wang Ch’i’s edition. Wang’s reading, “So resplendent—he shows his teeth of jade” (粲然啓玉齒, ts’an- nhen k’ei ngyok ch’i:) seems to have been brought up into the text from the commentary, a verbatim citation of a line from the second of Kuo P’u’s “Poems on Sauntering to Sylphdom” (Ch’üan Chin shih, 5.7a [p. 561]). 101  In contrast to all other editions, Wang Ch’i’s transposes the second and third words of the line, resulting in the reading “And be set apart through endless ages from the mortal realm.” Paul W. Kroll - 978-90-04-38020-2 Downloaded from Brill.com11/15/2020 06:09:18AM via San Francisco State University

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Li Po begins with a cry of appreciative joy at the mountain’s sun- and cloud-speckled gray-green appearance.102 He then sees the peak in broader perspective, as an axis astrorum, with the patterned ranks of stars crowning its summit. The “heaven” of line 3 is Ch’ang-an, the terrestrial analogue of paradise, a long 300 li away.103 T’ai-po Shan hardly seems part of the same world to which the T’ang capital belongs—it occupies a different, more lofty sphere of existence (the sense here is phonetically stressed by the complete deflected-tone make-up of line 4). And its resident genius is, not surprisingly, an exceptional person, a “green-faxed gaffer” who wears the mountain clouds as his cape, is wholly at ease on T’ai-po’s steep slopes, at home in a precipitous crevice, and craves no intercourse or dialogue with human representatives. The old fellow’s “green” hair betrays the effects of his spiritual attainments. He is actually growing younger, his hair recapturing the patinous gloss of that of an adolescent.104 Perceiving, when he comes upon him, that this is in fact a chen-jen or Realized Person, the poet humbly beseeches him to impart his arcane teachings. Quite unexpectedly, the transcendent one “smiles freely” at the poet (the more unexpected, because we have already been told—in an emphatic line, all in deflected tones again—that he does not smile or converse). As so often in Li Po’s verses featuring encounters with higher beings, he is the lucky recipient of divine dispensation. Here his prize is an allocution “on refining drugs”; he is given esoteric instructions on concocting an elixir that will conduce to transcendent status. We should remark that the verb used in this line (line 8) is *zhou 授, the formally correct term for the transferral of valued lore from master to pupil, and also that the line is entirely in deflected tones—as though it were italicized: this is clearly, for the poet, a momentous occurrence.

102  On the chromonym ts’ang and its reduplicated form, see Edward H. Schafer, “Brightness and Iridescence in Chinese Color Words,” Schafer Sinological Papers, No. 9 (13 April 1984), 7. 103  Recalling the popular adage noted in Li Tao-yüan’s 酈道元 (d. 527) Shui ching chu 水經注 (Commentary to the Classic of Waterways) (Taipei, 1962), 12.232: “Grand White, in Wu-kung, is three hundred [li] away from Heaven.” 104  It is wrong to replace this “green” in translation with an undistinctive “black,” as do von Zach and Takebe. It is rather black with a lustrous, almost iridescent, sheen—and that sheen is the primary image for the poet. In one of his T’ai Shan poems Li Po describes the Azure Lad’s “Verdant hair done up in twin cloud-coils,” a mark of that deity’s perpetual juvenescence. “Yu T’ai Shan, liu shou,” No. 3, ltpcc, 20.448; lpccc, 20.1157.

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Li Po ’ s Transcendent Diction

1873

The lesson finished, Li Po vows never to forget it; it has been “engraved on my bones.”105 And then, suddenly, his immortal teacher speeds away like a bolt from the sky. The departure of these unearthly entities is always abrupt and nebulous: their occasional visits to this world are, after all, supreme acts of grace and condescension, and are not to be prolonged. The poet strains to follow by sight the airborne path of his fleeting master, but it is impossible—the phenomenal cannot keep pace with the noumenal. (Here again, for the fourth time, we have a line completely in deflected-tone words. And we see the pattern now, if we have not before: all of these specially stressed lines highlight the subtle rarity—of aspect, action, cognition, or nature—of either the mountain or the Realized Person whom the poet discovered there.106) Forlornly gazing after this guest from the heavens, Li Po feels himself rather confused and agitated. The phrase ts’ang-jan 蒼然 is interesting here.107 It appears that Li Po has taken the connotation of the color-word ts’ang—usually a kind of maculated gray-green—and applied it figuratively to his emotional condition; hence my rendering, “in hazy state.”108 The “five emotions” (wu ch’ing 五情) are usually defined as joy, anger, lamentation, delight, and resentment. For the Taoist they are also explained as “the divine pneumas of the five receptacles [in the body] of yin and yang.”109 The expression “my five emotions are inflamed” cannot 105  Li Po uses this severe phrase in one other poem, addressed to a Taoist priestess. There he concludes his composition with the line “I’ll engrave on my bones a vow to emulate thee.” “Tseng Sung shan Chiao lien-shih, ping hsü,” ltpcc, 9.248; lpccc, 9.655; translated and commented on in Kroll, “Notes on Three Taoist Figures,” 23–26. 106  We might remark also the carefully arranged disposition of these lines in the body of the poem: final line of stanza 1, penultimate line of stanza 2, final line of stanza 3, penultimate line of stanza 4. It is as though the poem has a phonetic refrain. I have noticed the same sort of design in several other of Li Po’s poems; I hope to discuss the question more fully in a future study. Surely, though, conscious phonetic patterning and periodic punctuation of this type must have contributed greatly to the vaunted musicality of Li Po’s verse. Notice, too, how in the first two stanzas of this poem Li Po establishes a prosodic pattern of (OOXOX) for rhyming lines (excepting only the stressed, deflected-tone line 4); he then begins to vary the pattern in the following two stanzas but reverts to it as a mark of closural return in line 16. 107  There is no support in any edition for an emendation to ts’ang-jan 愴然, “woeful, griefladen,” which might seem appealing at first glance. 108  In the three other poems in which he employs the phrase (“Teng Huang shan Ling-hsiao t’ai, sung tsu-ti Li-yang wei Chi ch’ung fan chou fu Hua-yin,” ltpcc, 18.421; lpccc, 18.1086; “Ta t’ing k’u,” ltpcc, 21.470; lpccc, 21.1213; “Ch’iu teng Pa-ling wang Tung-t’ing,” ltpcc, 21.483; lpccc, 21.1247) it seems to suggest either a wavering mist or fading vegetation. 109   Yün-chi ch’i-ch’ien, 87.13b. Cf. the comment at 13.14b that “The five pneumas being vitalized, forthwith the five emotions are instinctively euphoric.”

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help but recall one of the couplets spoken by Shadow to Form, in a poem of T’ao Ch’ien 陶潛 (372–427): “When the body is gone, fame vanishes too;/ In mind of this, my five emotions are inflamed.”110 But the poet’s disappointment at being left behind is merely temporary— as, he realizes, is his remaining tenure in this world. For he now owns the technique for translating himself, by alchemical means, to empyreal haunts.111 Soon he shall no longer need to consort with the inhabitants of this lower sphere, but will enjoy eternal bliss with the Perfected on high. The detached air of this expectant and hopeful conclusion is tellingly emphasized in its prosody. For the first time in the poem we have, in line 17, a verse made up entirely of level-tone words: it is the long-withheld phonetic counter to the repetitive deflected-tone line that occurs in each of the four preceding stanzas and adds a welcome sonant complement. The concluding verse (line 18) then resolves the poem’s tonal pattern, returning to the established deflected-tone refrain but with a level tone for the penultimate word, to balance—and set off effectively—the definitive termination in *byet 別, a deflected-tone word whose meaning (“be set apart”) likewise resolves definitively the semantic pattern of the poem. The poet has come to rest in the contemplation of his own eventual transcendence.112 In terms of its diction and imagery, this poem is more immediately accessible than any of the others we have considered. It contains little in the way of recondite allusions or of abstruse hints of canonical literature. Yet it still quite clearly depends on an understanding of the spiritual—and linguistic— concerns of T’ang Taoism. The dazzling enchantments of the Taoist heavens and scriptures shine through Li Po’s verses with apparent but varying intensity. Those who have eyes to see may still recover some of the light. 110  “Ying ta hsing, i shou,” Ch’üan Chin shih, 6.4a (p. 603). 111  Technically speaking, transcendence by alchemical means gave access only to the heaven of Greatest Clarity. 112  Cf. Anchises, to his heroic son, in Aeneid, vi.730–32: Igneus est ollis vigor et caelestis origo seminibus, quantum non noxia corpora tardant terrenique hebetant artus moribundaque membra.

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Immortality Can be Studied Jan De Meyer

Three Poems

The ideal of immortality as something which man could attain through study, advocated most eloquently by Wu Yun in his Shenxian kexue lun, had already been discussed in Han dynasty and early medieval China, and it would continue to be present in public discourse long after our poet’s death. As a full discussion of the development of this debate would easily fill a booklength study, I shall suffice with a few early references here. One of the earliest references to the studying of immortality (xuexian 學仙) would seem to occur in the words of an obscure Master Shen, quoted in the Shi ji chapter on the feng and shan sacrifices. Master Shen is there said to have claimed that the Yellow Emperor was a student of immortality as much as a warrior.1 Also Yin Changsheng 陰長生 of Nanyang, a relative of Yin Lihua 陰麗華 (5–64), spouse of the Han emperor Guangwu, stated that immortality could be attained by the accumulation of studies ( jixue 積學).2 The following passage from the Taiping jing is much more interesting as it sketches the ascent of ignorant man to a divine creature thanks to studying: If man is ignorant but engages in studies, he will become worthy. If he is worthy and studies unceasingly, he will become a sage. The sage who studies unceasingly will become [a man of] the Way. [The man of] the Way who studies unceasingly will become immortal (xian). The immortal who studies unceasingly will become perfected (zhen). The perfected who studies unceasingly will become divine (or: spiritual, shen). All of this is the result of studies unceasingly accumulated.3 Remarkably, different or even conflicting attitudes toward the relation between studying and the attainment of immortality can often be found within one and Source: “Immortality Can be Studied,” in Jan de Meyer, Wu Yun’s Way: Life and Works of an EighthCentury Daoist Master, Leiden: Brill, 2006, 280–319. 1  Shi ji, 28.1393. 2  Liexian zhuan jinyi, Shenxian zhuan jinyi, p. 274. 3  Wang Ming (ed.), Taiping jing hejiao, p. 725.

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the same work. This tendency is readily observable in the Taiping jing, which couples the belief in the “learnability” of immortality with that in the individual’s fate, “mandate” or predestination (ming 命). “Every human life,” states the Taiping jing’s divine man 神人, “is subject to predestination. Those predestined for nobility will not be able to lead a commoner’s life, whereas those predestined for a commoner’s life will not be able to become noblemen.”4 When questioned about the feasibility of studying the Way, our divine man replies: Those who have received the heavenly mandate 天命 and are able to study this, will definitely obtain major salvation (dadu 大度). Middling worthies who study it will be able to achieve major longevity (dashou 大壽), whereas the inferior and ignorant who do it will be able to obtain minor longevity (xiaoshou 小壽).5 Interestingly, the Xiang’er commentary to the Laozi, the early Celestial Master movement’s catechism, minimized the importance of predestination, obviously in an attempt to avoid the ambiguity arising from the belief in being subjected to fate (seen as something typically Confucian) and the emphasis on the necessity of performing good deeds. Thus, in one of its attacks on the Confucian sages—described as self-proclaimed sages who lack accomplishment—the Xiang’er commentary states, in Stephen Bokenkamp’s rendition: Such as these are not able to receive the words of the Dao. They place themselves first and do not encourage people to individually strive in the practice of goodness so that, through the true Dao, the people might themselves obtain the longevity of Transcendents. On the contrary, such “sages” say that Transcendents already have their fates inscribed in their bones and that this is not something one might achieve through deeds.6 In accordance with this, the Xiang’er commentary implicitly confirms its belief in the possibilty of acquiring longevity and immortality by studying. Thus, commenting upon the “grasping of the Way of the ancients” (執古之道, cf. the last two lines of Daode jing 14), the Xiang’er commentary endorses the view that it is possible to reach the understanding that the Way does not disappear, not even in degenerate times, by observing the ancients who achieved

4  Wang Ming (ed.), Taiping jing hejiao, p. 289. 5  Ibid. 6  Bokenkamp, Early Daoist Scriptures, p. 107.

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Immortality Can Be Studied

1877

longevity and immortality by practising the Way. The commentary subsequently states, once more in Stephen Bokenkamp’s translation: Those who are able to take the transcendent and longevous of ancient times as models in order to urge themselves along in holding to the perfection of the Dao will thereby grasp the guiding threads of the Dao.7 Model emulation, an unflagging zeal in the performance of good actions and the non-acceptance of fatalism are thus drawn together so as to present a rather coherent view about the learnability of immortality. Lacking the consistency of the Xiang’er commentary is the Zhen gao. Here, however, it is hardly surprising to find different attitudes reflected, as in this book are gathered the experiences of a great many individuals. Examples like that of Liu Weidao 劉偉道, who ascended to the heavens in broad daylight after many years of studying immortality, are found next to others who acquired immortality without studying.8 Tao Hongjing’s own remarks seem to indicate that he considered both the accumulation of good deeds and studying possible avenues towards the attainment of immortality.9 Yet another interesting case is that of Ge Hong, who, in the opening section of the seventh chapter of his Baopuzi neipian claims that those whose fate belongs to an “asterism of life” (shengxing 生星) will naturally be fond of the Way of immortality. “If,” continues Ge Hong, “those who are fond of the Way of immortality strive after it, they will certainly obtain it. Those whose fate depends on an asterism of death (sixing 死星), however, will not believe in the Way of immortality. As they don’t believe in the Way of immortality, they will not engage in it.”10 Again, in the twelfth chapter, Ge Hong exclaims: “If one has not received the mandate (ming) to become immortal, one will certainly lack any predilection for immortality. I have never seen anyone who lacked the interest but still strove after it, just as I have never seen anyone who obtained it without striving after it.”11 In many other places, however, Ge Hong fully endorses the view that immortality can be attained by studying, without breathing a word about the influence of one’s individual fate.12 7  Bokenkamp, op. cit., p. 97. 8  Zhen gao, 5.5b and 5.12a. 9  Zhen gao, 16.12b. 10  Wang Ming (ed.), Baopuzi neipian jiaoshi, 7.136. 11   Baopuzi neipian jiaoshi. 12.226. 12  A few examples are Baopuzi neipian jiaoshi, 2.17, 3.46, 3.51–52, 7.138–139, 8.152–155, 14.260 and 16.287.

Paul W. Kroll - 978-90-04-38020-2 Downloaded from Brill.com11/15/2020 06:09:18AM via San Francisco State University

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De Meyer

The best-known early medieval debate about immortality and how to attain it, was the one sparked off by Ji Kang’s Yangsheng lun. The refutation written to it by Ji Kang’s friend, the Zhuangzi commentator Xiang Xiu, as well as Ji Kang’s answer to Xiang Xiu’s refutation, served as major sources of inspiration to many generations of literati, among them Wu Yun. Obtaining immortality through study, however, was not only a topic of debate in lengthy prose essays or philosophical works. As poetry served a non-negligible social function, our topic was bound to make its appearance in it. Even a cursory glance at the collected Tang poems, for instance, makes clear that studying immortality indeed was on many minds. In the following pages we shall first have a look at three Tang poems, roughly written between 750 and the early ninth century, i.e., the time when the influence of Wu Yun’s activities was most directly felt. Not only do they reflect different attitudes toward the learnability of immortality, they may also provide indications as to the exposure which Wu Yun’s Shenxian kexue lun enjoyed in Mid-Tang times. The three poems are ‘Immortality’ (Shenxian) by Wu Yun’s contemporary Zhang Biao 張彪, followed by two poems sharing the same title, ‘Studying Immortality’ (Xuexian), one by Wei Yingwu 韋應物 (737–792 or 793) and one by Zhang Ji 張籍 (c. 767–c. 830). Most of what we know about Zhang Biao derives from a poem which Du Fu wrote for him in 759. Apparently, Zhang Biao unsuccesfully tried his luck at the jinshi examinations, after which he withdrew from public life in order to take care of his ageing mother. Living in seclusion on Song shan, he seems to have been keenly interested in the pursuit of immortality. Zhang Biao’s Shenxian poem is one of only four of his that have been preserved thanks to Yuan Jie’s Qiezhong ji 篋中集 (comp. 760).13 Can immortality be studied or not? A hundred years is called “the great covenant.” How vast are heaven and earth! In the world of men, grief and joy each get their half. This floating life is truly ridden with delusions, Virtuous deeds turning into wickedness. Contending to be first equals a rat-race, And halfway leaves one emaciated and weak. Whereas the elders think of cultivating a long life, The younger generation ridicules solitude. 13   Tang ren xuan Tang shi 唐人選唐詩 (Hong Kong: Zhonghua shuju, 1958). p. 32 and Quan Tang shi, 259.2892. Du Fu’s poem, 寄張十二山人彪三十韻, is in Qiu Zhao’ao, Du shi xiangzhu, 8.655–660.

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1879

Immortality Can Be Studied

The five cereals will not lengthen your years, The four qi, however, are a wondrous medicine.14 What need was there for Liezi to still depend on something?15 My mind is replete with boundlessness. In its advocation of a life of solitude, far away from the world of men and its manifold delusions, and in its insistence upon the value of mental freedom and the harmonization of the different qi, Zhang Biao’s poetical effort may be rather conventional. Of special significance to us here, however, is the poem’s first line, shenxian kexue wu 神仙可學無, which reads like a very unambiguous reference to Wu Yun’s Shenxian kexue lun. Studying immortality also forms the topic of a pair of poems by Wei Yingwu, of which I here present the first. Clearly inspired by the story of Liu Weidao in the Declarations of the Perfected, its tone is both solemn and neutral, avoiding Zhang Biao’s enthusiasm as well as the sarcasm of some of the poets who wrote after him. Wei Yingwu, it should be added, was a scion of a clan—the Wei’s of Jingzhao, the metropolitan area—that had been known since early medieval times for their ties with the Celestial Master movement.16 As was the case with the Wangs of Kuaiji, an interest in Daoist matters was passed on from one generation to another. Long ago there was a Daoist priest Who strove for immortality, When a Numinous Perfected put him to the test His mind was free of doubt. A huge boulder of thirty thousand catties Was suspended by one hair, He crawled underneath and laid down there For no less than thirteen years.17 14  I assume Zhang Biao refers to the qi of earth, water, fire and wind, common in Tang dynasty medical discourse. See, e.g., Sun zhenren beiji qianjin yaofang (D 1163), 1.9b. 15  Echoing the opinion about Liezi voiced in the first Zhuangzi chapter. 16  Wei Yingwu’s involvement in Daoism has been explored by Sunayama Minoru, Zui Tô Dôkyô shisô shi kenkyu, pp. 348–63. 17  According to Zhen gao, 5.5b, Liu Weidao of Zhongshan (whom Tao Hongjing considered to have been alive under the Han) had been studying immortality (xuexian) for twelve years when he was put to the test by an immortal, who made him lie down underneath an enormous boulder suspended by one single gray hair. Totally relaxed and unperturbed, Liu Weidao spent another twelve years recumbent under the rock. Having passed a number of other tests, Liu received an elixir and ascended to heaven in broad daylight.

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Visualizing the Way and forgetting his person He passed the examination, His name was reported to the Jade Emperor Whereupon he ascended to the heavens. Disappearing slowly into the clouds He gradually became invisible, He left his disciples with the following words: “Be sincere and be unswerving!”18 With Zhang Ji, friend and disciple of Han Yu, we are at the other end of the spectrum. His poem on ‘Studying Immortality’ is one of the most vocal of all Mid- and Late Tang poems condemning the pursuit of immortality. The storeyed temple19 opened its vermilion gates, Trees and shrubs connected buildings and corridors. Amidst them was a man who studied immortality, Since his youth he had abstained from cereals. His high cap resembled a hibiscus,20 In the clear moonlight he had opened up his garments. For twelve hours a day he payed homage to Upper Clarity, A wealth of jade ornaments tinkling at his waist. By himself he recited the Book of the Celestial Elder,21 Which he secretly covered in a brocade bag with cloud motifs. Every hundred years one individual would be saved,  Wei Yingwu’s poem of course also recalls the well-known story of Fei Changfang, who had to pass the same test before being deemed worthy to receive the teaching of the Old Man in the Gourd. Fei Changfang, however, failed his final examination, and was forced to return home without having obtained the dao. See Hou Han shu, 82B.2743, transl. K. DeWoskin, Doctors, Diviners and Magicians, p. 79. 18   Quan Tang shi, 194.2001. Among countless other poems by Wei Yingwu imbued with Daoism, I shall only signal the ‘Song of Ma Mingsheng’s Encounter with the Divine Maiden’ 馬明生遇神女歌 here, which opens with the line “The student of immortality values merit, yet he also values the (seminal) essence” 學仙貴功亦貴精. See Quan Tang shi, 194.2002. 19  The original reads louguan 樓觀, which I translate here, as I do not know whether or not Zhang Ji has the well-kown Daoist temple at Louguan in mind. 20  The shape of the cap is in itself a reference to the lands of the immortals. 21  There’s a reasonable chance that Zhang Ji’s Tianlao shu 天老書 refers to the Tianlao shenguang jing 天老神光經 (D 866, preface dated 633), which pays much attention to the invocation of stellar deities.

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1881

Immortality Can Be Studied

Were it to be falsely divulged, calamities would ensue. Whenever someone with an immortal’s physiognomy was found, This method was then transmitted to him. The Master was seated in the central hall, His disciples kneeled in the four side rooms. With a golden knife all bodily hairs were cut off, While oaths were taken, numinous incense was burnt. When the disciples obtained the Master’s instructions, They entered the empty room after purifying rites. Guarding his spirit, [the Master] preserved the primordial qi, Whether acting or at rest, he complied with Dipper’s Handle. While his brazier was consuming the cinnabar, He waited day and night by the fire’s glow. Once the medicine was achieved, he ingested it, And counted the days until he would mount simurgh and phoenix. From hollow space came no divine reply, What had he been longing for in length of years? As all his diligence and toil proved ineffective, Misgivings multiplied within his chest. When feebleness gives rise to ailments, One’s allotted span is bound to be cut short. Fearing that others might see the master’s corpse, He was buried at night by the side of a ravine. Instead of seeking after the Way and longing for miracles, It is better to hold on to what is commonplace. The former kings knew that it was mistaken, Their warnings are found in our nation’s statutes.22 Zhang Ji’s hodgepodge of Daoist images, his descriptions of the Daoist temple, of the Master and of his disciples, prove that he was not unacquainted with Daoist practice of his day. The tone of the whole poem as well as its final message are of course reflective of the prejudices of a Confucian scholar with an 22   Quart Tang shi, 383.4298. Bai Juyi commented on Zhang Ji’s ‘Xuexian’ poem in his own poem ‘Du Zhang Ji gu yuefu’ 讀張籍古樂府, Quan Tang shi, 424.4654. On Zhang Ji’s anti-Daoist and anti-Buddhist sentiments, see Charles Hartman, Han Yü and the T’ang Search for Unity, pp. 161–62. Other Mid- and Late Tang poems that doubt the desirability of studying immortality include Wu Yuanheng’s 武元衡 (758–815) ‘Xuexian nan’ 學仙難 (Quan Tang shi, 317.3576), Bai Juyi’s ‘Beichuang xian zuo’ 北窗閒坐 (Quan Tang shi, 448.5049–50) and the same author’s ‘Da ke shuo’ 答客說 (Quan Tang shi, 459.5233–34).

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outspoken distrust of things otherworldly. Yet it remains an interesting poem, as it bears witness to the fact that, one generation after Wu Yun’s death, the pursuit of immortality was mainly perceived in terms of operational alchemy (the Master, who spends twelve hours every day “in audience with Upper Clarity” 朝上清, waits day and night by the side of his brazier, where the immortalityconferring medicine is being prepared) and the meditative visualization of cosmic deities and stellar energies (the reciting of the Book of the Celestial Elder and the meditation upon the stars of the Big Dipper).

Immortality Can be Studied. A Discourse

Let us turn to the Shenxian kexue lun now, Wu Yun’s most influential statement on the ascent to immortality.23 Included in its entirety in j. 93 of the Yunji qi­­ qian, its leading thoughts later inspired Chen Baoguang to compile his Sandong qunxian lu (D 1248) in 1154.24 The earliest quotes from our text would seem to go back to the Jindan fu, a Late Tang or Wudai treatise written in the language of waidan alchemy.25 John Didier has expressed doubts as to the authenticity of the Shenxian kexue lun, claiming that it was not attributed to Wu Yun until the eleventh century (when it was mentioned in the bibliographical sections of the Xin Tang shu) and that its inclusion in the Yunji qiqian of 1019 was anonymous.26 The latter point is correct: similar to the author of the Jindan fu, who quoted from the Shenxian kexue lun without mentioning Wu Yun’s name, Zhang Junfang put Wu Yun’s text at the head of Yunji qiqian 93 and omitted any reference to its author, as happens quite often in that great early Song anthology. As far as the earliest attribution of the Shenxian kexue lun is concerned, however, two 23  The Shenxian kexue lun is mentioned in the following catalogues: Chongwen zongmu, 9.6b and 8a; Xin Tang shu, 59.1522; Junzhai dushu zhi, 5b.59b; Tong zhi, 67.11b; Song shi, 205.5190; Wenxian tongkao, 225.1808. See also P. van der Loon, Taoist Books in the Libraries of the Sung Period, p. 129. The most important extant editions of the Shenxian kexue lun include the Zongxuan xiansheng wenji, 2.9b–16a; Yunji qiqian, 93.1a–7b; Siku quanshu, vol. 1071 (Zongxuan ji), 2.10a–17a; Wenyuan yinghua, 739.9a–14a and Quan Tang wen, 926.9649–52. I have relied predominantly on the text as found in the Zongxuan xiansheng wenji and the Yunji qiqian. 24  See also Judith M. Boltz, A Survey of Taoist Literature, p. 59. 25   D 261, 17a, 44a. See also Ren Jiyu & Zhong Zhaopeng (eds.), Daozang tiyao, pp. 189–90. Needham, Science and Civilisation in China, 5.5, p. 223, sees in this text an illustration of how the proto-chemical, i.e., waidan, symbolism was used in a neidan context. 26  J. Didier, ‘Way Transformation,’ p. 121.

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pre-Song sources unequivocally disprove Didier’s claim. The Shenxian kexue lun is mentioned in Wu Yun’s biography in the Jiu Tang shu, compiled by Liu Xu (887–946).27 Granted, this biography is anything but a model of reliability. However, on this particular issue its veracity is ascertained by the fact that Quan Deyu singled out the Shenxian kexue lun for special mention in his (authentic) Preface to Wu Yun’s collected works. Quan, moreover, aptly summarized the purport of the discourse as “an expression of sadness about the manner in which stupid and ignorant people distance themselves from the Way.”28 Though we need not doubt that the Shenxian kexue lun was indeed Wu Yun’s work, it remains true that there exist fascinating links between Wu’s text and other Tang dynasty materials. Of particular interest is the relation between the Shenxian kexue lun and parts of the second chapter of Zeng Zao’s 曾慥 (fl. 1131–1155) Dao shu 道樞 (D 1017).29 This chapter, divided in three sections each titled ‘Zuowang’ (Sitting in Oblivion), mainly consists of materials authored by Sima Chengzhen (the Zuowang lun 坐忘論) or edited by him (Tianyinzi 天隱子), but it also contains Zeng Zao’s own remarks. Moreover, passages of the third ‘Zuowang’ section (7a–8a) of the second Dao shu chapter, which contains a summary of Sima Chengzhen’s Zuowang lun, correspond to the text of a stela inscription, dated 829, that was once placed in front of a temple dedicated to Sima Chengzhen on Wangwu shan.30 It is also in this section that similarities with Wu Yun’s Shenxian kexue lun can be found. In this context, Livia Kohn has correctly pointed at the existence of a living oral tradition of Sima Chengzhen’s teachings on Mt. Tongbo in the Tiantai mountains, where Wu Yun indeed may have travelled.31 Moreover, we should not forget that oral traditions were not restricted to one single mountain. In Tang times, religious instructions, both in oral and written form, travelled over considerable distances, in the wake of masters and priests who, like Wu Yun, spent their peripatetic lives exchanging received wisdom and searching for illumination. We shall have more to say about this in the following chapter, where, among other things, we discuss Wu Yun’s views on sexual practice. 27   Jiu Tang shu, 192.5130. 28   D 1051, Xu, 2a–b. Quan’s words are repeated verbatim in Wu Yun’s biography in Lishi zhenxian tidao tongjian, 37.10a and Daomen tongjiao biyong ji, 1.11b. 29  On the Dao shu, see Judith Boltz, A Survey of Taoist Literature, pp. 231–234. 30  Livia Kohn, Seven Steps to the Tao: Sima Chengzhen’s Zuowang lun (Nettetal: Steyler, 1987), pp. 25–27, 77. 31  L. Kohn, op. cit., p. 26. Having been a temporary resident at Siming shan (not far north of Tiantai shan) and Jinyun shan (southwest of Tiantai shan), it is not to be excluded that Wu Yun spent some time at Mount Tiantai.

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In the introductory statement to the Discourse on the Feasibility of Studying Immortality, Wu Yun first discriminates between the ideals of longevity (shou) and immortality (shenxian),32 whereby the first is presented as inferior to the latter. In order to explain why so few seem to be interested in the cultivation of longevity, Wu Yun has recourse to a theory of the tripartite division of mankind, which is related to the one posited in the fourth Xuangang chapter. Here, the division is not explicitly based on differences in the allotment of yin and yang energies (as in Xuangang 4), but on different levels of intelligence. However, as that same chapter from the Mystic Mainstay elucidated, wisdom or dull-wittedness were directly linked to the workings of yin and yang. The ‘Great Plan’ encourages the full use of the five blessings, of which the first one is called: longevity (shou).33 Even august Heaven regards the prolonging of life until the age of one hundred as the ultimate in happiness. Imagine, then, what it would be like to pass beyond this world as an immortal, in inexhaustible eternity! However, as far as the great blessing of extended life (changsheng) is concerned, I have no companion at all in my generation. What is it that makes my contemporaries indifferent and lacking esteem? Allow me to tentatively discuss this. Those with less than average intelligence,34 comprising the masses, resemble the tiny flying and crawling creatures, whose dim notions fail to extend to their own life and death. When they hear about the Way, they have a good laugh together. Those whose intelligence is higher than average are restrained by the Confucian ethical code (mingjiao 名教, the “teaching of names”). Self-satisfied they fuss over the three bonds of

32  In much of Tang discourse, shenxian is synonymous with xian and may thus be plainly rendered as immortality. Only when shenxian appears juxtaposed to other notions such as tianxian, dixian or zhixian (referring to the nine different categories of immortals, such as found in the early Tang dynasty Daomen jingfa xiangcheng cixu) should it be rendered as “spirit immortal” or “divine immortality.” The main reason not to translate shenxian as “spirit immortal” in the context of Wu Yun’s works is, of course, that Wu Yun envisaged immortality as something involving both the human body and the spirit. In the Shenxian kexue lun, moreover, we find more cases of Wu Yun using xian than shenxian, making clear that he was not referring to a kind of immortality solely conceived of in spiritual terms. 33  For this reference to the ‘Hong fan,’ see Legge, The Shoo King, pp. 342–43. 34  An expression also used by Ji Kang in his essay ‘On Nourishing Life,’ Wen xuan, 53.728, transl. R. Henricks, Philosophy and Argumentation in Third-Century China, p. 27.

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human society35 and the five constant virtues,36 and that leaves them no leisure. When they hear about the Way, they hover between belief and rejection. Perhaps only one out of every thousand or ten-thousand is able to rise up in solitary excellence, to avoid being drowned by vulgar emotions, and to fully concentrate on the task of cultivation and refinement. Moreover, those who practise this do it secretly, and those who reach their goal live in seclusion. Thus, bringing it forward to the masses is rarely the direction taken. This is sad indeed! In his essay ‘On Nourishing Life’ (Yangsheng lun), Ji Kang criticized both the view that immortality can be attained by study and that one hundred and twenty years is the oldest age man can possibly reach. Ji Kang did not doubt the existence of immortals. On the contrary, he judged the records of their lives in earlier literature to form sufficient proof of their existence. However, it seemed to Ji Kang that immortals had been naturally endowed with a unique amount of extraordinary qi, implying that for the absolute majority of mortals even the lowest step of the stairway to transcendence was beyond reach. In his evaluation of Ji Kang’s opinions, Wu Yun does not deny that some humans have been naturally endowed with a unique amount of extraordinary qi, rather, he denies that all those who ascended to immortality did so thanks to their extraordinary endowment with qi. Wu Yun distinguishes between three categories of mortals, of which those naturally endowed with extraordinary qi are the first. The other two categories have to rely on “studying” in order to reach their goal, and only those with unflagging perseverance and an unlimited supply of sincerity will eventually succeed. Long ago Sang Jiao asked Juanzi:37 “From of old there has been death. On the other hand it is said that immortality exists. How is this to be explained?” Juanzi answered: “Both exist!” When it is said that both exist, 35  Which tie ruler to subject, father to son and husband to wife. 36  Humanity, righteousness, propriety, wisdom and trustworthiness. 37  The immortal Juanzi 消子 from the state of Qi (present-day Shandong) is well enough known, as his life was already outlined in the Liexian zhuan (Liexian zhuan jinyi, Shenxian zhuan jinyi, pp. 56–57). Later sources, such as Yunji qiqian, 108.3a and Lishi zhenxian tidao tongjian, 3.9a, merely copy this old hagiography. Like many of the earliest immortals, such as Sir Rongcheng 容成公, Pengzu 彭袓, Master White Stone (Baishi sheng 白石生) and Laozi himself, Juanzi is said to have practiced sexual techniques. A statement such as “When coiting, he ingested (lit. ‘ate’) his seminal essence” ( jie shi qi jing 接食其精) can easily be understood as a reference to the technique known as coitus reservatus or coitus thesauratus.

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this means that in principle, nothing does not exist. If in principle, nothing does not exist, it follows that immortality can be studied. Master Ji claimed that immortals had received a unique amount of extraordinary qi, that it was naturally endowed, and that it was not something which could be reached by the accumulation of studies.38 On this issue [Ji Kang] may not have explained everything there is to explain. There are those who obtain results without having to rely on the cultivation of studies. This means that they were endowed with extraordinary qi. Others need to study before they can succeed. It is the culmination of their achievements. Still others do engage in studies without, however, reaching their goal. Diligent at the start, they collapse in the middle, their sincerity not having carried all the way. These three categories each have their own line of logic; they cannot be investigated with only one single principle in mind. The final part of the introductory statement emphasizes the necessity of sincerity in the context of the mechanism of stimulus and response. Thanks to the secret workings of Heaven’s all-seeing eye, man’s purity and uprightness will not go unrewarded. Indeed, purity and sincerity are the essential prerequisites for anyone engaged in the pursuit of immortality. That Wu Yun intended his Shenxian kexue lun to be read by the non-Daoist elite of his day is suggested by the fact that nearly all references or allusions in this part of the text are to standard histories and the Confucian classics. It is confirmed, moreover, in the very last lines of the Discourse, where Wu Yun addresses his audience as “all you gentlemen” ( fanbai junzi 凡百君子), an expression which goes back to the Book of Odes. Man is created between heaven and earth. That he differs from the multitudes of species is obvious. When there is stimulus, there is response; when there is arousal, there is communication. So it happened that when Geng Gong pulled out his knife, a spring gushed forth from the flat, dry  Interestingly, Wu Yun’s rendering of the conversation between Juanzi and Sang Jiao is loosely based on the concluding remarks (zan 贊) added to the Liexian zhuan (Liexian zhuan jinyi, Shenxian zhuan jinyi, p. 114). I have not been able to unequivocally identify Sang Jiao 桑矯, whose name is given as 桑蟜 in the Liexian zhuan. Perhaps he is the same person as the “Mulberry Master,” Sangzi 桑子, with whom the immortal Yuzi 玉子 studied. Cf. infra, p. 361. 38  Wu Yun quotes the opening section of the Yangsheng lun, Wen xuan, 53.727, transl. Henricks, op.cit., pp. 22–23.

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earth,39 and that when Li Guang shot an arrow, a hidden rock received it all the way to the feathers.40 When purity and sincerity are present even for a moment, then although one strikes only ground or rocks, they will respond like shadow and echo.41 How much more so when one has for a long time manifested one’s sincere heart: how could the Perfected Lord (zhenjun 真君) fail to be secretly moved by it? And when he is secretly moved, then the stairway towards no-death is extended to one. Who is this Perfected Lord? None other than “Most High” (Taishang 太上, i.e., Taishang Lao jun, Most High Lord Lao). Being the venerable absolute in divine intelligence, he stands alone prior to the most profound obscurity, residing high above the [Palace of] Purple Tenuity,42 and secretly stabilizes the populace.43 The Odes mention “God is with you,”44 the Documents state: “Heaven’s purview is truly discerning”45, “It blesses the good and sends calamities unto the immoral.”46 It nevers errs even 39  When Geng Gong 耿恭 (first century ad) was defending a town against the Xiongnu, his besiegers cut off the water supply. Geng had his men dig a well, but even at a depth of one hundred and fifty feet no water was obtained. It was the hottest of summer and soon the men were reduced to drinking horses’ urine. Unable to bear this, Geng Gong recalled how an earlier Han general had once struck a hill with his sword, whereupon a spring had gushed forth from it. He then straightened his clothes, and, repeatedly prostrating himself in front of the well, prayed on behalf of his troops. A little while later, water gushed forth. Cf. Hou Han shu, 19.721. 40  While out hunting, the famous general Li Guang 李廣 (d. 119 bc) came upon a rock hidden in the grass, which he mistook for a tiger. The arrow he shot at the rock penetrated it deeply. When Li Guang found he had not shot a tiger but a rock, he took another shot at it, but this time his arrow proved powerless. Shiji, 109.2871–72; Han shu, 54.2444. In Wushang biyao, 83.3b, Li Guang is rewarded with a posthumous career as a “ghost functionary” (guiguan 鬼官). 41  Cf. Guo Qingfan, Zhuangzi jishi, 31.1032: “Verity is the absolute in purity and sincerity. The impure and the insincere are unable to move man.” 42  The Ziwei gong 紫微宫 is a constellation of stars surrounding the Pole Star. In his first youxian poem (Zongxuan xiansheng wenji, 2.27a), Wu Yun described how he had an audience in the Palace of Purple Tenuity; cf. Schafer, “Wu Yün’s Stanzas on ‘Saunters in Sylphdom’,” p. 314. 43   Yinzhi 陰騭, compare the opening lines to the ‘Hong fan,’ Legge, The Shoo King, p. 320. 44   上帝臨汝, cf. the odes ‘Daming’ 大明 and ‘Bigong’ 悶宫, transl. Legge, The She King, pp. 436, 623. 45  For three examples of the scrutinizing faculties of Heaven 天監, cf. the first part of the ‘Taijia’ 太甲 chapter, transl. Legge, The Shoo King, p. 199; the ode ‘Darning’, transi. Legge, The She King, p. 434 and the ode ‘Zhengmin’ 烝民, transl. Legge, The She King, p. 541. 46   福善禍淫, from ‘Tang gao,’ transl. Legge, The Shoo King, p. 186.

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the slightest bit. How would the “children of delusion” be able to fathom its origins? Their days are spent in ignorance. They turn their backs on the fundamental and chase after the accessory. Therefore there are seven [attitudes] leading away from the path to immortality, just as there are also seven [attitudes] bringing one nearer to the path to immortality. Let us examine the sequence of seven causes guiding away from the path to immortality. Buddhism is not mentioned by name here, but it is obvious that when Wu Yun criticizes those who “consider life to be an illusion,” he has the Buddhists in mind. However, not only Buddhism is attacked in this paragraph. In a more general way, Wu Yun considers reprehensible the tendency to solely pay attention to human nature 性, and thereby disregard the body, or physical form 形. His standpoint is simple: human nature needs the human body in order to actualize itself. If the body and the vital energies that inhabit it disintegrate, human nature becomes a useless entity. The body has thus to be prevented from decaying. “To willingly proceed to death’s terrain,” as Wu Yun describes it, should be anything but a commonly held principle. Again, we are faced here with the question what immortality meant to Wu Yun. And again, Wu Yun seems to be implying that immortality cannot be merely spiritual, but has to be physical as well. Present-day scholars have not been able to pry into the “gateway of the wonders”47 or to penetrate its profound subtleties. Echoing what others have said, they take obliteration to be the genuine thing and consider life to be an illusion. The only thing they focus on is human nature, thereby neglecting the body.48 To willingly proceed to death’s terrain49 has thus become a common principle. [Such people] haven’t got an inkling about qian and kun being the “containers” of the changes. When qian and kun are destroyed, there is nothing through which the changes can be made visible. The body and qi form the storehouse of human nature. When body and qi

47   Miaomen 妙門, an allusion to the final sentence of Daode jing 1: “Mysterious and even more mysterious, it is the gateway to all wonders.” 48  This statement in particular has led Ren Jiyu to conclude that Wu Yun defended the idea of physical immortality. See his Zhongguo zhexue fazhan shi—Sui Tang (Beijing: Renmin chubanshe, 1994), p. 386. 49   Gan zhi sidi 甘之死地, an expression ultimately going back to Daode jing 50, also alluded to in Ji Kang’s answer to Xiang Xiu’s refutation of Ji’s essay ‘On nourishing life,’ cf. Henricks, op. cit., p. 39.

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go to ruin, human nature has nothing whereby it can actualize itself.50 If human nature has nothing whereby it can actualize itself, then of what use is it to us?51 This is the first cause guiding people away from the path to immortality. The second paragraph aims at those convinced that immortality does not equal an unlimited amount of time, and that in the end we must all die. This paragraph is of considerable importance, because in refuting what he evidently regards as a major fallacy, and in expressing his belief in the infinity of immortality, Wu Yun sketches not only an outline of creation and evolution, but also of the way mortal man may revert to his origins and thereby become immortal. The pattern of evolution starts with voidness (xu), and via the subsequent stages of the formation of spirit (shen) and qi, moves to the shaping of the physical form (xing), which, once inhabited by the spirit, becomes man. Now, if man lets things run their ordinary course, death will be unavoidable. Immortality can only be obtained by effectuating a reversal of the pattern of evolution. Crucial here is the refinement (lian) of both physical form and qi: only if the body has been purified, can it harmonize with the qi, and only if the qi has been purified, can it harmonize with the spirit. Resulting from this is not, as one may expect, a return to voidness, but the fusion with the Way 與道冥.52 Needless to say, it is not hard to see in Wu Yun’s admonition to inflect the usual pattern of evolution and degeneration into a “reversal to one’s ancestral source” 反其宗源 the foreshadowing of a principle that was to become of crucial importance in neidan alchemy.53 As to the concrete methods whereby man may refine his body and qi, it should be noted that the second one in particular is formulated rather vaguely: how exactly does one “embrace the Way” (handao 含道)? As far as the first method, the so-called “beckoning of the Perfected” (zhaozhen 招真) is concerned, a few words of explanation are not out of place here. I translate zhen not as “perfection” but as “Perfected,” as in most instances the ancient term 50  The passage in italics is also found in the third section on zuowang of Zeng Zao’s Dao shu, 2.7b. 51  On the whole, human nature does not occupy an important place in Wu Yun’s system of thought, certainly not in comparison with the treatment it received at the hands of some of Wu Yun’s younger contemporaries, such as Li Ao. The reader may, however, consult the fifth and twenty-seventh chapters of the Xuangang, cf. infra, pp. 321–23. 52  For a discussion of this passage in relation with Tan Qiao’s views, see John Didier, “Way Transformation,” pp. 521–24. 53  Cf. Ge Guolong 戈國龍, “Daojiao neidanxue zhong de ‘shunni’ wenti” 道教內丹學中的 順逆問題, Shijie zongjiao yanjiu 2000.4, pp. 56–64, esp. p. 59.

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zhaozhen is encountered in discussions of the ways of communication between the Daoist adept and members of the celestial hierarchy. The reader may consult, e.g., Yunji qiqian, 37.11a, which quotes the Dengzhen yinjue and emphasizes the importance of burning incense as part of Daoist liturgy. It is thanks to the medium of the incense that the Perfected will be beckoned and one’s intentions will be made known to the celestial authorities. The early medieval Dongshen badi miaojing jing 洞神八帝妙精經 contains three talismans used in beckoning the Perfected, of which the first applies to the August One of Heaven 天皇, the second to the August One of Earth 地皇 and the third to the August One of Man 人皇. The appended instructions conclude with the following promise: “Lengthy actualization of the August Lords will make the divine qi descend into the talisman. The perfected numen will append itself to one’s person and one will achieve immortality.”54 Yet another instance of zhaozhen in a relatively early text is in the Declarations of the Perfected, where Lady Wang of Purple Tenuity 紫微王夫人reveals to Xu Mi that she is rather displeased with Xu’s tendency to be “overly hasty in beckoning the Perfected” 招真急.55 Next there are those who say that immortality must have its limits, that in the end we all go to rot in our graves. These people are confused in their investigative capacities and consequently put their faith in fallacies. How would they understand that “clodlike56 being” has its origin in silent nonbeing? Out of accumulated voidness, spirit is engendered. When spirit starts to function, it becomes pregnant with qi. As qi congeals, it gradually starts to manifest itself. Repetition of this manifestation creates the physical form. When the physical form is established and spirit inhabits it, it becomes man! Therefore, if one allows things to run their habitual course,57 death will be the result. If one reverts to one’s ancestral source, one becomes immortal. Therefore one beckons the Perfected in order to refine the physical form. When the physical form is pure, it joins with the qi. One embraces 54   D 640, 10a–11a. On the possible relation between the Dongshen badi miaojing jing and Ge Hong, and the similarities between its talismans and those found in the Taiping jing, cf. Ren Jiyu & Zhong Zhaopeng (eds.), Daozang tiyao, p. 459. 55   Zhen gao, 2.21b. 56   Kuairan 塊然 is explained as outwardly free of embellishments and inwardly free of emotions and mental activity. It is similar to another of Zhuangzi’s ideal states of being: that of the withered tree stump. See Guo Qingfan, Zhuangzi jishi, 7.306. 57   Liudun 流遁, lit. “to flow and abscond.”

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the Way in order to refine the qi. When the qi is pure, it joins with the spirit. Embodying the fusion with the Way is called “obtaining the Way.”58 As the Way most certainly knows no extremities, why, then, would immortality be subject to depletion? My entire generation is greatly confused about this and remains unaware till the very end. This is the second cause guiding people away from the path to immortality. In a discussion of the role of the death of the physical body in the ascent to immortality, Livia Kohn once wrote: “The state attained is a mental equanimity toward death, a state of concentration in which one is either so innerly harmonized that ‘life and death are one whole’ (sheng-ssu i-t’i 生死一體) or so far advanced beyond the world in ecstatic vision that one is more at home over there than down here. In either case, physical death—though occurring at some point—has become negligible.”59 Not all Daoists shared this view. In his Xuangang, Wu Yun had found sufficient evidence to conclude that Zhuangzi did esteem the way of immortality.60 Wu Yun’s description of the third cause guiding people away from the path to immortality, however, opens with an attack on Zhuangzi, who repeatedly preached equanimity in the face of suffering and to whom life and death formed an indivisible whole. Wu Yun, of course, was not the first advocator of the study of immortality to criticize Zhuangzi on this particular issue. Ge Hong had earlier done exactly the same.61 Also under attack in the Shenxian kexue lun is foreknowledge (qianshi 前識), a notion that may need a few words of elucidation. Daode jing 38 qualified foreknowledge as “the flower of the Way, but also the beginning of foolishness,” and the Heshang gong commentary explained it as “saying that one knows without knowing.” Also Ji Kang warned against foreknowledge in his reply to Xiang Xiu’s refutation of the Yangsheng lun. This is how Ji’s reply begins, in Robert Henricks’ translation: The reason why we value intelligence and esteem activity is that they can benefit life and enrich our persons. But when desires are active, regret and remorse arise, and when intelligence operates, foreknowledge is established. When foreknowledge is established, the mind is opened and things are pursued. When regret and remorse arise, anxieties build up 58  The passage in italics is found verbatim in Dao shu, 2.7a. 59  “Eternal Life in Taoist Mysticism,” Journal of the American Oriental Society 110.4 (1990), p. 625. 60  See pp. 239–41. 61   Baopuzi neipian jiaoshi, 8.151.

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and the body is in danger. With these two [foreknowledge and regret] if you are not hiding something on the inside, you are tied up with something on the out. All these can do is harm your health; they are not things that enrich your life.62 As Ji Kang specifically targeted foreknowledge as one of the causes of a shortened lifespan, perhaps Wu Yun had this particular text in mind when he wrote the following: Next there are the insistence upon life and death forming one single body63 and the erroneous view to consider foreknowledge64 as the “awakening to perfection” (wuzhen 悟真).65 [Such people claim that] the body has deterioration and dispersal as its necessity, and that it is the function of the hun- and po-souls66 to be reborn. Consequently they detest their visible, actual substance, making plans only for their future personality. How would they understand that once one enters the creator’s mighty furnace, and once yin and yang are allowed to perform their “metalmelting” on one,67 the wandering hun-souls are transformed and become the guardians of another receptacle? The spirit may attach itself to an alien class, while all knowledge about one’s former physical shape vanishes. Compare it to birds transforming into fish and fish transforming into birds: each [species then] follows its own course, and the two are no longer in mutual communication. If even the transformations of one’s physical shape remain unknown, then this is all the more so regarding the renewed creation that follows upon death. This is truly to be grieved at, yet people do not grieve at it. This is the third cause guiding people away from the path to immortality. Wu Yun’s apprehension about the fragility of the human construction and the individual’s lack of control over its transformations, which we earlier found expressed in the Xuangang, is here restated in a most pregnant fashion. Life 62   Philosophy and Argumentation in Third-Century China, p. 38. 63  Cf. Guo Qingfan, Zhuangzi jishi, 6.258. 64  Instead of qianshi, Wenyuan yinghua and Quan Tang wen have the pointless “knowledge of the Way” (daoshi 道識). 65  This must be a relatively early instance of the notion which was to become famous thanks to Zhang Boduan’s Wuzhen pian. 66  Wu Yun designates hun and po as yingpo 營魄, as in the opening line of Daode jing 10. 67  A similar statement may be found in Dao shu, 2.8a.

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and death do not simply—as Zhuangzi claimed—form one single body. The moment of death is the starting point of a process whereby the different elements, both physical and spiritual, of the persona are recycled and assigned to new functions and destinations. Once one has entered the “creator’s mighty furnace,” only the creator, and his metal-melting underlings known as yin and yang, have the power to determine which new constellations will be assembled out of the disintegrated materials one leaves behind in death. It becomes all the more understandable why Wu Yun in the Mystic Mainstay accorded so much weight to warning against becoming the victim of the workings of yin and yang. The path leading toward immortality, says Wu Yun in one of the following pages, will only be shown to those who love life and detest death. The distance from Zhuangzi’s equanimity vis-à-vis death could hardly be greater. In his misgivings about man’s uncontrollable posthumous transformations and his repeated recommendations to prevent the body from decaying, Wu Yun, it should be stressed, was very much a child of his time. The anonymous author of the Yuanqi lun—presumably composed around 800—expressed a similar concern when he explained what might happen to what also he called the “wandering hun-souls” 遊魂. By way of verification, he mentioned the following four specific cases: An old man of Wudu 武都 changed into a woman, a grandmother of the Jiang 江 clan changed into a sea turtle, a hog belonging to the Heitai 黑胎 clan transformed into a man, and Kuai Wu’an 蒯武安 was a man who transformed into a tiger.68 The fourth cause guiding people away from the path to immortality is that of material wealth and sensual pleasures. Next, to think of officials’ carriages and ceremonial caps as sources of satisfaction,69 to think of achievement and fame as imperishable, to find pleasure in sex and to indulge in music, to wear fancy clothing and crave delicious food. [Those who do so] say to themselves that amassing wealth is an excellent plan, and that leaving behind posterity is a far-reaching

68   Yunji qiqian, 56.4b. 69  Possibly inspired by Zhuangzi, Guo Qingfan, Zhuangzi jishi, 16.558, rendered by Burton Watson as: “When the men of ancient times spoke of the fulfillment of ambition, they did not mean fine carriages and caps” (The Complete Works of Chuang Tzu, p. 174).

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scheme.70 How would they understand that what is abundant must decrease, that what is lofty must face peril, that what has been obtained will again be lost, that where there is profit there will be loss? Would those who remain firmly attached to these practices, and who banish purity and voidness from their minds, be willing to nourish the “central harmony” (zhonghe 中和) in quietude and cooperation, and to lead human nature to communication with perfection?71 This is the fourth cause guiding people away from the path to immortality. Although the wording—of the last few lines in particular—is quite obscure, suggesting textual corruption, I do believe it is not too far-fetched to find in this paragraph an allusion to an age-old Daoist ideal, present in the literature connected with the earliest known organized Daoist communities. Indeed, Wu Yun’s disapproval of amassing wealth and refusing to share it with the “central harmony,” i.e., mankind, recalls the Taiping jing, more specifically where that scripture treats what is considered to be one of six major sins: To accumulate riches and refuse to help the poor, letting them die of starvation and cold. These goods belong to the Central Harmony, that is to say to mankind, and they are the means through which Heaven and Earth lavish their blessings of jen. They must circulate so that everyone has what he needs. Those who interrupt this circulation and who hoard what does not belong to them are enemies of the Harmonious Breath of Heaven and Earth.72

70  Does Wu Yun’s low opinion as to the merits of “leaving behind posterity” 貽後昆 imply that he himself refrained from procreating? Not necessarily. In Wu Yun’s day, most Daoists ordained as Celestial Master priests would have been married with children. But that does not mean that their posterity had been engendered carelessly. Medieval Daoists were supposed to respect a large number of prescriptions and restrictions related, among other things, to their calendar, before they could engage in procreation. Only those children conceived on propitious dates and in favourable circumstances, so it was thought, would grow to be healthy and intelligent individuals. 71  My translation here is tentative. Comparison with the textual variants in Wenyuan ying­ hua does not solve the problems of interpretation in this passage that has almost certainly been tampered with. 72  The translation is that of Maxime Kaltenmark, in his essay “The Ideology of the T’ai-p’ing ching,” H. Welch & A. Seidel (eds.), Facets of Taoism, p. 34. See also Wang Ming (ed.), Taiping jing hejiao, 67.242.

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In the subsequent paragraphs of the Shenxian kexue lun, detailing the fifth, sixth and seventh cause guiding away from the path to immortality, three attitudes are described, each of which illustrates an improper relation to the Way and the Daoist community. Targeted are those who develop an appetite for the Way and the longevity it promises after a lifetime of addiction to the affections, those who dabble in operational alchemy and spend their possessions in the quest for medicinal substances without understanding Daoism’s basics, and, finally, Daoist priests who are only Daoist in name and misuse their ecclesiastical status in pursuing aims that are anything but otherworldly. The plain fact that Wu Yun criticizes these three groups of people in a text that was meant to be read by a non-specialist but cultured audience is, of course, highly telling. It evinces that many members of the elite of Wu Yun’s day not only had an active interest in life according to the Way, or experimented with proto-chemical alchemy, but that a number of them had also found their way into the Daoist clergy. Believers such as Lady Wang and her husband Xie Liangbi, whom Wu Yun accompanied as they set their first steps in the religious hierarchy, were no exceptions. Throughout the Tang, it is possible to find examples of members of the highest echelons of the secular bureaucracy who had received the Celestial Master as well as more elevated ordinations. We shall meet a few of them in our final chapter. Next, when powerful and flourishing, to be a slave to love and affections, and after the hair has gone gray, to develop a mind that hankers after life. The studies one then engages in may begin to reveal their first results, but the injuries incurred will not be healed. [Such people, whose] nature has not rid itself of age-old habits, will vainly exert themselves in the amelioration of their skin. They stealthily admire the nominal aspects of the Way, while [in fact] being cut off from the reality of perfection. This will not remove [their names] from the records of the dead, nor will they be entered on the mysterious registers [of those eligible for immortal office]. After months and years have slipped by imperceptibly, the “great moment” (i.e., the moment of death) suddenly arrives. About to perish, they resentfully put the blame on divine intelligence. This is the fifth cause guiding people away from the path to immortality. Wu Yun’s choice of words in the above paragraph is of no little relevance in revealing the influence of Celestial Master teachings. Having one’s name erased from the “records of the dead” (siji 死籍) and added instead on the “mysterious registers” (xuanlu 玄籙) was a formula used by Celestial Master priests as part of a basic Zhengyi ritual known as chaozhen 朝真 (“Audience with the

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Perfected”).73 Likewise, the phrase “to resentfully put the blame on divine intelligence” (yuanjiu shenming 怨咎神明) occurs verbatim in the excerpts from the ‘Registers of the Orthodox and One’ (Zhengyi lu 正一籙) collected in the Yunji qiqian.74 There it is said that “When families who have received the Way happen to be stricken with disease, they should ponder their transgressions and repent of their sins. They must not resentfully put the blame on divine intelligence.” Wu Yun had clearly not forgotten what he had learnt during his initiation in the Celestial Master curriculum. Next, having heard that the Great Cinnabar can confer “winged transformation” (yuhua 羽化, i.e., immortality), and that the ingestion of substances might increase one’s life span, consequently to avidly busy oneself around the fire in the brazier and to tirelessly [search for] herbs and plants. [Such people] repeatedly spend all their wealth in order to procure the eight minerals,75 (while) the medicinal substances are hardly efficient in the “three passes.”76 They don’t understand that [in order to make] potable gold one has to depend upon the instructions of a person of supernatural qualities (lingren 靈人),77 and that the flowering of the magical zhi-plant must find its nourishment in the energy of the Way (daoqi 道氣).78 Without having examined its fundamentals, they labour 73  Cf. Yunji qiqian, 45.9b. On the origin of these terms in Han dynasty grave-securing writs, see A. Seidel, “Geleitbrief an die Unterwelt. Jenseitsvorstellungen in den Graburkunden der späteren Han Zeit,” in Naundorf, Pohl & Schmidt (eds.), Religion und Philosophie in Ostasien, pp. 161–183. 74   Yunji qiqian, 45.4a. 75   Bashi 八石: cinnabar, realgar, mica, malachite, sulphur, rock salt, salpetre and orpiment. 76  Several explanations have been given to the sanguan 三關, of which one refers to the mouth, the hands and the feet. See the relevant section of the Huangting neijing jing in Yunji qiqian, 11.43b–44a. In neidan, the three passes are situated in the coccyx, between the shoulder blades and in the back of the head. See Wang Mu (ed.), Wuzhen pian qianjie, p. 271. 77  On the production of potable gold ( jinye 金液), elaborated in the fourth Baopuzi neipian chapter, see J. Needham, Science and Civilisation in China, 5.3, pp. 82–89. In Ge Hong’s view, potable gold and the “cyclically-transformed elixir” (huandan 還丹) formed the two major avenues to material immortality. Their production and subsequent ingestion presented the crowning achievement of the path to immortality. Minor elixirs and various techniques (such as those of sexual and respiratory nature) merely served to extend the adept’s lifespan, enabling him to devote a sufficient amount of time to the making of potable gold or the cyclically-transformed elixir. See Baopuzi neipian jiaoshi, 4.70. 78   Daoqi is an important concept in numerous ancient Daoist texts, among them the Xiang’er commentary to the Daode jing. See Mugitani Kunio 麦谷邦夫, “Rôshi sôjichû ni

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on its trivia. When in the end nothing is accomplished, they exclaim: “The ancients have cheated me.” This is the sixth cause guiding people away from the path to immortality.79 Next, to physically dwell among the followers of the Way, whilst the mind is absorbed in this mortal life; to act in disregard of the codes and prohibitions (kejin 科禁, i.e., religious discipline) and to rest without cultivation or exercise. Towards the outside world, [such people] want to be praised for being pure and calm, all the while brooding out villainous schemes on the inside. Man can be fooled, but the divine cannot be cheated.80 This is the seventh cause guiding people away from the path to immortality. The subsequent section, which surveys seven attitudes, or rather complexes of attitudes, supposed to bring one closer to the path toward immortality, is considerably shorter than the preceding one, to which it acts as a mirror image. What must be emphasized here is that the following seven points are not Wu Yun’s own version of, say, Sima Chengzhen’s “seven steps to the dao,” as outlined in the latter’s Zuowang lun.81 They do not describe a gradual ascent to the mystical union with the Way, but sketch seven separate modes of behaviour or states of mind, each of which can serve as a preparatory stage for “the real work.” They are exactly what Wu Yun calls them: elements which bring one closer to the path leading toward immortality. The path itself, and the ways to walk it, are the subject of the final section of the Shenxian kexue lun. Once more, Wu Yun makes abundantly clear that his text was not intended for limited circulation within Daoist circles, but was aimed mainly at secular society. Even those active in government service, Wu Yun claimed, might hope tsuite”, Tôhô gakuhô 57 (1985), pp. 76–106 and Bokenkamp, Early Daoist Scriptures, pp. 82, 96, 101, 114, 126, 140. Together with Taishang Laojun and a number of other divinities and celestial functionaries, the daoqi are addressed in a Celestial Master rite aimed at obtaining remission of one’s sins; cf. Yunji qiqian, 41.13b and 45.9a. Keeping one’s mind focused on the qi of the Way is advised in a set of precepts taken from the Huahu jing (Yunji qiqian, 39.17b). In the commentary to Huangting neijing jing 24 (Yunji qiqian, 12.1b), daoqi is said to constitute the basic stuff of the twenty-four Perfected qi of Heaven, and of the twentyfour Perfected inhabiting the three dantian of every human body. 79  Wu Yun’s critical remarks about operative alchemy have led to a general concensus about Wu Yun being a precursor of neidan alchemy. 80  Cf. the sixth Langu poem. 81  Transl. Kohn, Seven Steps to the Tao: Sima Chengzhen’s Zuowanglun (Nettetal: Steyler, 1987). Also Wu Yun has been credited with the authorship of a Zuowang lun, see Van der Loon, Taoist Books in the Libraries of the Sung Period, p. 109.

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to obtain immortality one day. And the only Daoist text mentioned by name in this section of the discourse is the Zhen gao, which Tao Hongjing compiled “seemingly with the aim of bringing both the literary brilliance and the saving message of the Perfected to the attention of a wider cultivated public,” as Michel Strickmann aptly formulated it.82 If, however, it is in one’s nature to find pleasure in the mysterious void; if emotionally one has scant desires and cravings; if one does not understand what is so commendable about glory and splendour, and [thus] makes no forceful attempts at exalting oneself; if one does not discern what is so desirable about immorality and perversion, and [thus] does not have to guard against depravity in order to render oneself chaste; if one embodies extreme benevolence and if one incarnates extreme quietude; if one rises above the dust and dregs of this world and roosts in perfection on the other side of things material; if one’s thoughts are with the Way and one locks this into one’s bosom, if one makes one’s cause of wuwei, then that is the first [attitude] bringing one closer to the path toward immortality. Next, to strive after [moral] eminence and to esteem antiquity; to constrain one’s ambitions and to be lofty in action;83 to be aware that glory and splendour are fleeting and unstable, [and therefore] to disregard them and not care for them; to be aware that [lascivious] music and a woman’s charms can be an attack on one’s nature, [and therefore] to renounce them and not seek them; to cut short “yin thieving”84 and to establish “yin virtue;”85 to restrain one’s anger and lust; to regard slander 82  “On the Alchemy of T’ao Hung-ching,” H. Welch & A. Seidel (eds.), Facets of Taoism, p. 141. 83   Keyi shangxing 剋意尚行, cf. the opening words of the fifteenth Zhuangzi chapter, describing the reclusive scholar of the mountain valley, who condemns the men of his generation. 84   Yinzei 陰賊 in its most elementary form means “hidden thieving,” and is often found among basic moral precepts. See, e.g., Yunji qiqian, 19.17b, 89.6b, 91.14b, 92.10a. With Wu Yun it acquires the additional sense of “being plundered by yin energies.” 85  One establishes yin or “hidden” virtue by helping one’s fellow man without taking credit for it. In another context, however, it may also indicate the virtue amassed during a posthumous stay in the underworld, as a preparation for a career in the immortal bureaucracy. The value of yinde 陰德 (as of its cognate yingong 陰功) is repeatedly emphasized in the Zhen gao. Note that Wu Yun’s wording recalls the first of a set of ten elementary Daoist precepts, quoted in Yunji qiqian, 40.7b, which states: “One must not be a hidden thief or a secret schemer, and harm other beings for one’s own profit; one should practice hidden virtue and widely bring relief to the multitudes of living beings.”

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and flattery as equal; to dwell in forests and mountain ranges; to cultivate purity and perfection: that is the second [attitude] bringing one closer to the path toward immortality. Next, to be personally present in the world of emolument and rank, while one’s mind roams the territories of the Way and its virtue;86 to serve one’s superiors with loyalty, to confront one’s subordinates with right­ eousness; to be severe toward oneself while treating others with generosity; to be benevolent, kind, respectful and mild; to widely exhibit love without distinction; to outwardly blend with the clamour and squalor [of human society], while inwardly cherishing limpidity and purity; to act hiddenly and to cultivate in secrecy; to love life and detest death; that is the third [attitude] bringing one closer to the path toward immortality. Next, to treat splendid gates in a lighthearted manner; to find pleasure in poverty and to delight in a life of humility; to cherish the means whereby to develop [the land] and save [the people], but in a careless manner, as if they did not exist; to comprehend the teachings of past and present, but in a carefree manner, as if they were mere emptiness; not to go after nobility and not to receive emoluments; to be unwavering in one’s esteem for the outerworldly; to be placid in one’s devotion to the cultivation of life; that is the fourth [attitude] bringing one closer to the path toward immortality. Next, to be naturally endowed with an intelligent disposition; to cherish outstanding and forceful moral integrity; to raise an army that has eliminated all cunning (wangji 忘機) and to make them into crack troops: no one you attack will be your equal, and every battle will be immediately won. Thereafter one brings the person to rest in quietude, one protects the spirit with harmony, and one reaches perfection through refinement. That is the fifth [attitude] bringing one closer to the path toward immortality.

86  Ge Hong (Baopuzi neipian jiaoshi, 8.148) cited no less than twelve examples of men who had participated in government, all the while successfully striving for immortality. Among them were the Yellow Emperor, Pengzu, Laozi and even Zhuangzi. “Among the ancients,” claims Ge, “many obtained the Way while bringing relief to their generation. That they cultivated this as hermits-at-court was because they possessed sufficient strength.”  Aside from this, Wu Yun’s formulation of those “whose mind roams the territories of the Way and its virtue” 心遊道德之鄕 is very interesting. Exactly the same phrase occurs in Yunji qiqian, 45.13b, as part of a set of liturgical instructions—undoubtedly of Celestial Master origin—regarding husband and wife jointly conducting worship in their oratory.

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Next, to feel remorse over what is gone, to cleanse the mind in order to renew oneself.87 Though one has lost it in the prime of life, one hopes to receive it with the coming of old age. One mends errors through merit, and when these errors have vanished, merit is complete. One transforms deviance through correctness, and when deviance has been forgotten,88 correctness is present. No hindrance is able to affect one’s resolve, no commotion is able to injure one’s disposition. Nothing but refinement and subtility will gradually manifest themselves. That is the sixth [attitude] bringing one closer to the path toward immortality. Next, to be extremely loyal and extremely filial,89 extremely virtuous and extremely incorruptible.90 According to what is said in the Declarations of the Perfected, [immortality] can be spontaneously reached without having to rely on studies.91 Bi Gan cut out his heart but did not die;92 Huifeng drowned yet came to life again.93 As to Bo Yi and Shu Qi, Zeng Shen and Filial Ji, people watched them die, [but] the Way preserved them.94 People such as they have all entered the immortal ranks. We refer 87   Xixin zixin, cf. our chapter 5, p. 213. 88   Wenyuan yinghua and Quan Tang wen read 亡 (to disappear) instead of 忘 (to forget). 89   Zhen gao, 16.10a promises a posthumous appointment in the subterranean bureaucracy to those who had lived lives of extreme loyalty and extreme filial piety. 90  On the posthumous compensations for the extremely virtuous and extremely incorruptible, see Zhen gao, 16.11a–b. 91   Zhen gao, 5.12a does indeed mention this possibility. It feels somewhat awkward to read an argument in favour of obtaining immortality without studying in a discourse devoted to the possibility of obtaining immortality through studying. 92  See pp. 164–65. 93  Wang Huifeng 王惠風 was the daughter of the Jin courtier Wang Yan 王衍 (256–311). The spouse of one of the Jin imperial princes, Huifeng fell into the hands of Shi Le, when that Jie tribesman took Luoyang in 311. She reacted to Shi Le’s attempts to make her his wife by jumping into the waters of the Huanghe. She was rescued, however, by Han Xihua 韓西華, a Perfected Lady of Mount Song who was out travelling. Thus, to ordinary mortals Huifeng appeared to have died, but in reality she was taken back to the mountain where Wu Yun would later be ordained as a Daoist priest. See Zhen gao, 13.6a–7a and Lishi zhenxian tidao tongjian houji, 4.5a–b (where her name is given as Wang Jinxian 王進賢), as well as Jin shu, 96.1511 for a different account, devoid of supernatural elements. Note that in Wushang biyao, 83.6a and 7b, Bi Gan and Wang Huifeng are listed among those who have attained the rank of earthly immortals (dixian). 94  According to Yuanshi shangzhen zhongxian ji, 8a, Bo Yi and Shu Qi (cf. chapter 4, p. 181) had posthumous careers as Vice Directors of the Nine Heavens ( jiutian puye 九天僕 射), and had Tiantai shan under their jurisdiction. Zeng Shen 曾參 was a disciple of Confucius, who refused to take up official employment for all his life. See Shi ji, 67.2205;

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to them as having secretly transformed in hidden circumstances, and as having died without perishing. All of them exemplify the spontaneous workings of nature. This is the seventh [attitude] bringing one closer to the path toward immortality. Morality, it will be clear, is Wu Yun’s main concern here. Whether one chooses a life “in the world of emolument and rank” or dwells “in forests and mountain ranges,” the path one should follow is that of integrity, humility, wuwei, purity, equanimity and freedom of desire. Impervious to glory, splendour and sensual pleasures, one is “unwavering in one’s esteem for the outerworldly” and “placid in one’s devotion to the cultivation of life.” Note how much weight is accorded to benevolence, loyalty, righteousness and filial piety—Confucian values that had been firmly integrated into Daoism at least since the inception of the Shangqing movement. Likewise, the accomplishment of merit—preferably in the form of yin or “hidden” virtue—and the unflagging willingness to come to the aid of one’s generation are repeatedly advocated.95 Once again we are reminded here of how closely Wu Yun followed in the footsteps of Ge Hong, who made the following observation in the third chapter of his Baopuzi neipian: The accomplishment of merit is of the utmost importance, followed by the elimination of sin. To save others in danger, allowing them to avoid calamities, to protect people from disease and to make sure they do not die through injustice: these are considered to be the foremost merits by those who practise the Way. Those in search of immortality (xian) should regard loyalty, filial piety, mildness, obedience, benevolence and trustworthiness as fundamental. Those who do not cultivate a virtuous Gaoshi zhuan, 1.9b–10a and Zhen gao, 2.4b. Filial Ji 孝己 was a son of the Shang king Wuding. His mother died young, whereupon Wuding remarried. The king believed the slander his second wife spread about Ji and banished his son, whereupon he died, mourned by the entire kingdom. Xiao Ji and Zeng Shen were often mentioned in one breath as examples of extreme filial piety, such as in Guo Qingfan, Zhuangzi jishi, 26.920. 95  We often think of Shangqing Daoism as a highly individualized type of practice, whereby the sacred scriptures have replaced the priest of the earlier Daoist communities, and where salvation, in the words of Isabelle Robinet, “is thus universal in the sense that the adept becomes one with heaven, not in the Buddhist sense of striving to save all living beings” (cf. Kohn, Daoism Handbook, p. 212). In Wu Yun’s day, however, this was not necessarily the way in which Shangqing was perceived. When Quan Deyu composed his poetic description of how he observed gengshen in the company of a Daoist (Quan Tang shi, 320.3610), he began with the words: “Cavernous Perfection (i.e., the Shangqing school) esteems the saving of the world” 洞真善救世.

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lifestyle but are only preoccupied with the occult sciences ( fangshu 方術) will never obtain longevity (changsheng).96 The remaining section of the Shenxian kexue lun, written in prose interspersed with portions of poetry, begins with the author advising his reader to “dismiss the seven attitudes guiding away from the path to immortality and to adopt the seven attitudes bringing one nearer to the path toward immortality.” Doing so is what Wu Yun calls: To be lifted from the realm of perdition, To leave the path to submersion, To smash up calamity’s wagon, To mount the carriage of good fortune. That the adept, though he has now mounted the carriage of good fortune, still has a long ride ahead, is made clear when Wu Yun then promises that “thus equiped one may begin to cross the ford to immortality.” The subsequent paragraph, which was copied, with minor variations, into the Jindan fu (44a–b), again touches upon the aim of the immortality seeker, described by Wu Yun as “a more exalted existence both bodily and spiritually” 形神俱超. The same theme, restated in different fashions, will emerge again and again throughout the rest of the Shenxian kexue lun. Thereupon one will recognize wherein the original mandate (yuanming 元命) resides, and one will understand the source of the correct qi.97 “Vacuity congealed”98 and placid tranquillity gladden one’s nature. Exhaling the old and inhaling the new (i.e., breathing exercices) harmonize one’s spirit.99 One is protected and established (baoding 保定)100 by eminent vacuity101 and aided by excellent medicine. This causes one to be rescued both inside and outside, and to reach a more exalted existence

96   Baopuzi neipian jiaoshi, 3.53. 97   正氣之所由, an allusion to the poem ‘Yuanyou,’ cf. Chu ci jizhu, p. 106; transl. Kroll, “An Early Poem of Mystical Excursion,” p. 158. 98  Cf. Wu Yun’s ‘Rhapsody on Cleansing the Mind,’ p. 222. 99   Wenyuan yinghua and Quan Tang wen read: “Exhaling and inhaling, bending and stretching harmonize one’s body.” 100  Cf. Legge, The She King, p. 255. 101  Instead of gaoxu 高虚, Wenyuan yinghua reads gaoling 高靈, “eminent numina.”

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1903

both bodily and spiritually.102 Even though such a person may not yet have transcended this mortal coil, I would most certainly describe him as someone who is flapping his wings above the crimson clouds! The following argument—centered around the relation between being (you) and non-being (wu)—may at first seem theoretical in nature, but it demonstrates once more that Wu Yun’s interest in metaphysics was predominantly practical. Just as being and non-being, as metaphysical categories, can only reach completion by complementing each other, by generating each other, or by relying upon one another, the subtle, rarified aspects of the human person cannot exist separate from its tangible aspects. Both cooperate as equals, and the one should never be sacrificed so as to benefit the other. The same law, of course, also operates on the macrocosmic level, where voidness and vacuity, on the one hand, and more material elements, such as the primordial qi, yin and yang, heaven and earth, and sun and moon, on the other, are related to one another as substance (zi 資) is to function (yong 用). As in the ultimate Xuangang chapter, it should be emphasized, Wu Yun reveals what can only be considered an indisputable attachment to life: it is because the human person exists, subsists, or is preserved (cun 存), that it is enabled to enjoy the vastness of the universe and the abundance of the myriad beings that dwell in it. As “life is the great virtue of heaven and earth,” death— described in terms of the human person scattering like smoke or being extinguished like ashes—should be discarded and eliminated. The Way is without purposive action and without form, [but] it has feelings and it has faith.103 Therefore we say: “If man can think of the Way, the Way will also think of man. The Way does not turn its back on man, it is man who turns his back on the Way.”104 How profound are these words! Common sense has it that the Way is the embodiment of mysterious vacuity. Consequently, non-being is valued and being is looked down upon. [Common sense also has it that] man is naturally gifted with 102  Also waidan alchemists were concerned with “making both body and spirit into something wonderfully subtle” 形神倶妙. Cf. the Jinhua chongbi dan jing mizhi 金華沖碧丹 經秘旨 (D 914), zhuan 傳, 3a. 103  Verbatim in Guo Qingfan, Zhuangzi jishi, 6.246. Wenyuan yinghua and Quan Tang wen read 性 (nature) instead of 信 (faith). 104  In Wenyuan yinghua and Quan Tang wen, the latter sentence reads: “Man never turns his back on the Way.” Wu Yun’s message here is similar to the one of Xuangang 31, cf. pp. 243–44.

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De Meyer

certain capacities and abilities, as a result of which being is preferred and non-being is neglected. How would [popular opinion] understand that being is generated out of non-being, and that non-being relies on being in order to make itself manifest? Being and non-being are blended in unison (huntong 混同), and thereafter reach completion. Therefore vacuous silence and mysterious vastness are the “imageless images” (wu xiang zhi xiang 無象之象) of the Great Way.105 The “two deportments” (yin and yang) and the three celestial bodies (sun, moon and stars) are the “imagecarrying images” (you xiang zhi xiang 有象之象) of the Great Way. If the “pinnacle in voidness” (xuji) had been the sole miracle, it would not have been echoed by the exhaling and inhaling of the primordial qi, the flowing of yin and yang, the creation of heaven and earth, and the revolving of sun and moon. Thus, being takes non-being as its function, and non-being takes being as its substance. Hence, [heaven and earth, which respectively] cover and protect [all beings], exist in eternity, and the perfected106 and the sages do not meet destruction. Therefore it is said107 that “life is the great virtue of heaven and earth.”108 That by which I perceive the vastness of the universe and the abundance of the myriad beings is the fact that I exist. Were I to scatter like smoke or to be extinguished like ashes (i.e., disappear without leaving a trace), then heaven may as well cave in and earth may as well be engulfed: they would display themselves vainly, [because] I would not be there to “possess” 有 them. Therefore it is said that “death is heaven-and-man’s bitter poison.”109 Who is able to drive out that bitter poison, to shake his clothes and cut off intercourse with the world, and to only have the Way for neighbour? Why would the dao be something remote? Walk this way and it will be within reach! Within ultimate voidness hides the subtle 妙, [but] it needs to be stimulated in order to be efficacious 靈. It is similar to metal and stone, which harbour resonance, [but] need to be struck in order to resound. Therefore one keeps the “square inch”110 unobstructed, so as to bring it in agreement with vacuity. Vacuity entails quietude. One relies upon ultimate quietude in

105  Compare the attempts at describing the dao in Daode jing 14 and 41. 106   Wenyuan yinghua and Quan Tang wen read 仙 (‘immortal’) instead of 真. 107  Reading 謂 instead of 為. 108  Cf. Zhou Yi jijie, 15.361. 109   Tudu 荼毒, cf. the ‘Announcement of Tang,’ Legge, The Shoo King, p. 186. 110  The heart, and therefore also the mind.

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Immortality Can Be Studied

1905

order to accumulate111 stimulation 感. Stimulation leads to all-pervading communication 通. When there is all-pervading communication, the universe will be supremely stable and the heavenly glow will emit its brilliance.112 The interdependence of physical shape and human nature has never yet reached its extremity. The similarities between the macrocosmic patterns of heaven and earth and the microcosmos of the human person are further explored in the next segment. Each and every part of the human body is the abode of a portion of “divine illumination” (shenming), the omniscient universal protector and provider of spirituality. Thanks to this divine protection, the body may be preserved—yet another indication of the physical aspect of Wu Yun’s idea of immortality—and death may be repelled. Once the adept has made this choice, his “elevation on high” (gaoju 高舉) becomes a distinct possibility. As far as the concrete methods of cultivation and refinement recommended by Wu Yun are concerned, operational alchemy (in the form of cyclicallytransformed elixirs and the mineral elixir, obviously still very popular among eighth-century Shangqing adepts, known as langgan 琅玕) is emphatically presented as redundant. Advocated instead are the in-depth study of the “jade chapters of Cavernous Perfection” 洞真之玉章, i.e., the Shangqing canon, as well as a number of techniques—among them the ingestion of the solar, lunar and other astral essences—common to the Shangqing school or the slightly older Scripture of the Yellow Court, designated here as the “golden writ of the Supreme Emperor” 太帝之金書. Moreover, the physical shape with which man has been naturally endowed is patterned on that of heaven and earth. His five organs and six intestines, his hundred joints113 and four limbs, are all inhabited by divine illumination, and each of them has its own controller and guardian. By 111   Wenyuan yinghua and Quan Tang wen read jing 精 (“refine”) instead of ji 積. 112  Inspired by a passage from Zhuangzi’s ‘Gengsang Chu’ chapter, Guo Qingfan, Zhuangzi jishi, 23.791. Instead of the yuzhou taiding, tianguang faming 宇宙泰定天光發明 (in both of the Daozang versions and in Quan Tang wen), which I have translated, Wenyuan yinghua reads yu taiding, tianguang fa 宇泰定天光發, which is closer to the Zhuangzi passage and allows for an interpretation in which man and not the universe is the subject under discussion: yu 宇 is often explained as qiyu 器宇, which bears upon the individual’s spirit and deportment. The entire passage in italics is found, mentioning the Shenxian kexue lun as its source, in Jindan fu, 17a. 113  The six intestines and hundred joints also occur together in Wu Yun’s fourth buxu ci, Zongxuan xiansheng wenji, 2.31b, Schafer, “Wu Yün’s ‘Cantos on Pacing the Void’,” p. 403.

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preserving114 them, they exist; by abandoning them, they cease to exist. If they exist, there is life. If they cease to exist, there is death. Therefore death is discarded and life is chosen. If one then intones the golden writ of the Supreme Emperor115 and thoroughly investigates the jade chapters of Cavernous Perfection, if one lets the Thearchic One roost inside the “crimson palace”116 and aligns the Three Primes within the “purple chamber,”117 if one inhales the florescence of the two radiances and ascends the numinous net (linggang 靈綱) of the Seven Primes,118 the Way is accomplished and merit is complete. In that case one shall be elevated on high without having any need for langgan or the great cyclically-transformed [elixir]!119 Noteworthy about the outline of the adept’s ascent through more exalted states of being which Wu Yun subsequently provides is that it presents a minor 114   Cun 存 must be read here in contrast with fei 廢 (abandon, do away with). Yet, in the context of the divine protectors of man’s organs, cun maintains its typical Shangqing connotations of “to visualize” and “to actualize.” 115  Cf. Yunji qiqian, 12.10b, where Taidi jinshu 太帝金書 is given as one of the Huangting jing’s alternative titles. 116  Schafer has aptly described Diyi, the Thearchic One 帝一 (or the Thearchic Monad) as the coordinator and harmonizer of the astral energies operating within the adept’s body. Diyi’s residence is the heart, also known as the “crimson palace” ( jianggong 絳宫). Wu Yun’s wording here is identical to a line in his fourth buxu ci, Zongxuan xiansheng wenji, 2.31b.3 and Schafer, “Pacing the Void,” pp. 402–404. 117  According to the Wuchengzi commentary to the Huangting waijing jing, zifang 紫房, the “purple chamber,” is another name for yufang 玉房 (“jade chamber”), mingtang 明堂 (“hall of brilliance”) or jianggong, in other words, the heart. Cf. Yunji qiqian, 12.33b. Instead of sanyuan 三元, Quan Tang wen reads sanguang 三光, the “three radiances” (sun, moon and stars). Interestingly, sanyuan also occurs in Wu Yun’s seventh buxu ci; there too, the Qing dynasty compilers of the Quan Tang shi have emended to sanguang. 118   Qiyuan 七元 indicates both the seven stars of the Dipper and the primordial qi of the seven orifices of the head. Cf. Huangting neijing jing, 9.3 and its commentary in Yunji qi­ qian, 11.25b and Schafer, “Wu Yün’s ‘Cantos on Pacing the Void’,” p. 394, n. 68. 119   Langgan is the name of a famous mineral elixir, which, ingested, was believed to elevate the adept to the celestial regions. Discussion of its importance in Shangqing practice by M. Strickmann, “On the Alchemy of T’ao Hung-ching,” pp. 134–136. Its preparation is described in detail in the Taiwei lingshu ziwen langganhua dan shenzhen shangjing 太微 靈書紫文琅矸華丹神真上經 (D 255). Dahuan 大還, or “great cyclically-transformed,” is short for dahuandan 大還丹, the great cyclically-transformed elixir. To Ge Hong, cyclically-transformed elixirs, together with potable gold, presented the major ways to the obtainment of physical immortality. Cf. Baopuzi neipian 4 and J. Needham, Science and Civilisation in China, 5.3, pp. 82–88; 5.4, pp. 242–279.

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1907

Immortality Can Be Studied

variation from the one in the final Xuangang chapter. There, Wu Yun had stated that “the immortal is refined so as to become Perfected. The Perfected is refined so as to form a pair with the Subtle. Forming a pair with the Subtle, there is identity with the Spirit. Being spiritual implies union with the Way.”120 Here, this becomes: “The perfected who has united with the Way is called the divine man.” Perhaps more significant is the way in which Wu Yun’s scheme of mystical ascent varies from the one found in the Daomen jingfa xiangcheng cixu, the work supposed to reflect the conversations between emperor Gaozong and Pan Shizheng, Wu Yun’s master’s master. According to the latter work, mortal man could aspire to the status of immortal (xian), which corresponded to the Heaven of Great Clarity (Taiqing), after which he could obtain the status of perfected (zhen), corresponding to the Shangqing realm of Upper Clarity. At the top of the ladder stood the sage (sheng), corresponding to the Lingbao realm of Jade Clarity (Yuqing).121 In Wu Yun’s scheme, we find the sage being replaced by the “divine man” (shenren): Without exception, from ordinary man 凡 one becomes immortal, from immortal one becomes perfected. The perfected who has united with the Way is called the divine man.122 Remarkably, Wu Yun’s scheme of mystical ascent is thus closer to the one found in the Taiping jing passage translated at the head of this chapter than to the more recent one which accorded the highest position to the Lingbao sage. As we shall see, this too will reveal itself to be a good indicator of Wu Yun’s religious profile. In the subsequent segment, Wu Yun has recourse to poetry in order to further describe the divine man. Now he has merged with the Way, The divine man is able to move between life and death, He can choose between darkness and light; Going out beyond the transmuting motor,123 He enters the realm of Great Silence;124 120  Cf. p. 250. 121  Cf. pp. 231–32. 122  “He whose body and spirit have united into one, is called a Divine Man,” says the Zuowang lun, Yunji qiqian, 94.15a. 123   Huaji 化機, cf. Xuangang 2 and 5, pp. 264, 322 of this book. 124   Taimo 太漠, the Great Silence, described by Edward Schafer as a “nullity beyond the cosmos itself (“Wu Yün’s ‘Cantos on Pacing the Void’,” p. 413, n. 152), returns with some

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Without purposive mind125 he has penetrating insight, Without wings he wheels through the air; He amuses himself in the lodge of resplendent clouds,126 And feasts at the hall of winged prospects; His happiness is aeonian, His blessings127 are boundless; His longevity (shou) equals that of Great Vacuity, And withstands all measuring. In the final lines of the discourse, a warning is issued not to be careless in the transmission of arcane knowledge. Indeed, few sins weighed heavier than that of transmitting the Way in an unauthorized manner. Not only did it ruin every chance of one ever obtaining immortality, it also negatively affected the posthumous existence of the souls of one’s deceased relatives. Apart from this, a perfunctory comparison is made between the merits of Daoism—here called the “School of immortality” (xianjia 仙家)—and of Confucianism and Mohism. Naturally, the former is presented as superior, as not only the nobility itself (wanghou 王侯)—Wu Yun’s audience—but also their ancestors as well as their descendants are promised to derive ample benefits from the succesful pursuance of the goal of immortality. This Way has been proclaimed in “golden bamboo slips.”128 Its profundities can therefore not be frivolously divulged! Scholars fond of studying ought to open the “jade envelopes” (yujian 玉檢) and explore the arcana contained therein.

frequency in Wu Yun’s works. In his tenth buxu ci, Wu Yun imagined that he was “ascending to Great Silence.” In the twenty-first youxian poem, Wu Yun spoke of a “numinous wind rising up from Great Silence” (Zongxuan xiansheng wenji, 2.30a and Schafer, “Saunters in Sylphdom,” p. 333). And in the ‘Rhapsody on the Ascent to Perfection,’ our visionary poet pictured himself “scaling Great Silence’s bright vastness” (Zongxuan xiansheng wenji, 2.6b). 125   Wuxin 無心. 126  Compare Huangting neijing jing 12, in Yunji qiqian. 11.31a. 127  The rhythm of this rhymed passage suggests that one character has slipped away in both Daozang versions. Wenyuan yinghua and Quan Tang wen have therefore added fu 福 (blessing, good fortune). Wenyuan yinghua also mentions another version which reads: “His happiness is aeonian and knows no bounds / His longevity compares with that of Great Vacuity and cannot be measured.” 128   Jinjian 金簡, cf. Xuangang 10, transl. below.

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Immortality Can Be Studied

1909

There is also this. Loyalty, filial piety, kindness and love are what the Confucians and Mohists honour. As to that, however, which the School of Immortality esteems, its blessings extend to the aristocracy, its beneficial influences reach the ancestors, and its bounties spread among the descendants. After comparison, which of these three [traditions] is the greatest? Earliest antiquity cannot be discussed in detail. As to the period since Xi and Xuan,129 however, every single generation has known [immortals of] the likes of Guangcheng[zi], Chisong[zi], [Ding] Lingwei and Anqi [sheng]. In distant [times] there were the records on bamboo and silk, while closer-by we have eyewitness accounts and hearsay. Over there, we have the shining [examples] of those who have obtained [immortality] in past and present. Over here, the feasibility of studying immortality has been brilliantly displayed. Why, then, would all you gentlemen not make some efforts at it?

Sacred Studies

I shall end this chapter on the feasibility of studying immortality with a sequence of two relevant Xuangang chapters, both of which touch upon the actual studies which the Daoist adept should undertake. Both chapters also derive part of their interest from the fact that they reflect Daoist theories regarding the creation and the sacred nature of Daoist scriptures, besides illustrating the multi-layered nature of Tang dynasty Daoism. Xuangang 10 is titled ‘To establish teaching through the spiritual way’ (Shendao shejiao 神道設教), an expression borrowed from the text to the twentieth hexagram, guan 觀 (contemplation), where it is said that “the sages established teaching through the spiritual way, and all-under-heaven submitted to them.”130 When the nine heavens were still young,131 before the two images (qian and kun) were created, numinous winds gathered subtle elements, and in Hollow Space efflorescences congealed. Precious stanzas crystalized 129  Fuxi and Xuanyuan, comp. the opening lines of the Si huanchun fu, p. 129. 130   Zhou Yi jijie, 5.113. As the sage is qian, corresponding to yang, and the people are kun, corresponding to yin, the text to this hexagram alludes to the victory of yang over yin, a principle very dear to Wu Yun. 131  The same phrase occurs in Yunji qiqian, 9.10a, where the divine origins of the Jiudan shang­­hua taijing zhongji 九丹上化胎精中記 are elucidated.

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in “creation-from-chaos” (huncheng 混成); jade characters appeared in autonomous transformation (duhua 獨化). They stood out on the boundary between being and non-being, and shone prior to “the dark and the yellow” (heaven and earth). Sun and moon obtained them in order to irradiate; qian and kun depend on them in order to “cover and support.”132 Thereupon the Supremely August One of Vacuity (Wushang Xuhuang 無上虛皇) commanded the Heavenly King of Primordial Commencement (Yuanshi Tianwang 元始天王) to compile them into “golden bamboo slips” and arrange them into “jade stanzas.”133 What was originally kept secret in the uppermost heavens, in the end descended to our lower regions. Who, upon examination, was found to possess the Way, was then granted these writs. Thus, Fuxi received the chart, Xuanyuan received the talisman, Gaoxin received the Canon of Heaven, and the Great Yu received the Luo Writ.134 This is where “the establishing of teaching through the spiritual way” made its first appearance. Xuanyuan, grieved that customs deteriorated, then acted as teacher to emperors.135 As human relationships degenerated, he communicated the Daode [ jing] so as to demonstrate simplicity. When gods and ghosts acted

132  This sentence is also found in the opening section of the third Yunji qiqian chapter, which recounts the origins of the Daoist faith. As will be clear from the subsequent footnotes, many other textual similarities exist between Xuangang 10 and the ‘Daojiao xu’ 道教序 section of Yunji qiqian 3. It is one of several instances where Zhang Junfang seems to have copied Wu Yun without acknowledgement. 133  According to Yunji qiqian, 3.1b–2a, “Wushang Xuhuang was the teacher and Yuanshi Tianzun the transmitter of the correct and perfected teachings.” The same Yunji qiqian passage also mentions Wu Yun’s “golden bamboo slips” and “jade stanzas” 玉章. 134   伏羲受圖, 軒轅受符, 高辛受天經, 大禹受洛書. The entire sentence is also found in Yunji qiqian, 3.2a. Moreover, it is quoted, mentioning the Xuangang lun as one of its sources, in the neidan text Zhenyuan miaodao yaolüe (D 924), 5a. On the Zhenyuan school, see Isabelle Robinet, “Recherche sur l’alchimie intérieure (neidan): l’école Zhenyuan,” Cahiers d’Extrême-Asie 5 (1989–1990), pp. 141–162. On the Han and pre-Han origins of the tale of Fuxi receiving the River Chart (Hetu 河圖) and the Luo Writ being brought to Yu, see Anna Seidel, “Imperial Treasures and Taoist Sacraments—Taoist Roots in the Apocrypha,” in Michel Strickmann (ed.), Tantric and Taoist Studies in Honour of R. A. Stein, vol. 2 (Brussels: Institut Belge des Hautes Etudes Chinoises, 1983), esp. pp. 296–302. 135  Xuanyuan 玄元 (Mysterious Prime) here denotes the deified Laozi and not the Yellow Emperor (whose personal apppellation was Xuanyuan 軒轅) of the preceding paragraph. On Laozi’s recurring role as teacher of rulers, see Anna Seidel, “Imperial Treasures and Taoist Sacraments—Taoist Roots in the Apocrypha,” pp. 345–48.

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Immortality Can Be Studied

1911

disorderly, he expounded the Covenantal Authority (mengwei 盟威),136 so as to scour away evil. Coming then to Su, Mao, Zhou, Wang, Pei, Wei, Yang and Xu,137 all of them personally met the Mysterious Sage, and all of them were personally transmitted the precious scriptures. Therefore the Western Terrace138 no longer conceals the supernatural writs, and Eastern Florescence139 no longer keeps secret the instructions of the perfected. Thus the “dragon stanzas and cloud seals”140 have gradually found their way among mankind. Teachers141 have succeeded one another, and scriptures and methods have become increasingly numerous. Though it is possible to read extensively, it is difficult to put everything into practice. What does this mean? Bringing together the Ways of a long line of sages within the mind of one single man will render the spirit exhausted and the body fatigued, and 136   Referring to the announcement made by the deified Laozi to Celestial Master Zhang Daoling in June 142; see Santian neijie jing 三天內解經 (D 1205), 1.5b–6a and S. Bokenkamp, Early Daoist Scriptures, p. 215. 137  Su Lin 蘇林, the Mao 茅 brothers, Zhou Yishan 周義山, Wang Bao 王褒, Lord Pei 裴君, Wei Huacun, Yang Xi and several members of the Xu 許 family. The hagiographies of these key figures of Shangqing Daoism are grouped in Yunji qiqian, chapters 104 through 106. 138   Xitai 西臺 seems to be identical to the “Western Tortoise” (Xigui 西龜) in the fifth of Wu Yun’s youxian poems. Xigui corresponds to the “Terrace of the Tortoise of White Jade” 白玉龜臺, cf. Tao Hongjing’s Dongxuan lingbao zhenling weiye tu (D 167) 5b. As explained by Edward Schafer, “Wu Yün’s Stanzas on ‘Saunters in Sylphdom’,” p. 317, n. 27, it belongs to Xiwangmu’s palace at Kunlun. 139   Donghua 東華, which is paired with Xigui in the same youxian poem, is the eastern equivalent of Xiwangmu’s Kunlun Palace in the west. Wu Yun stated that his own name had already been checked in the Donghua Palace: he was thus destined to become immortal. The ruler of this Palace is the Azure Lad (Qingtong 青童), Lord of the Eastern Sea and the dawn, and keeper of a set of registers of immortality. Cf. E. Schafer, “Saunters in Sylphdom,” p. 317, n. 28; Ursula-Angelika Cedzich, “Das Ritual der Himmelsmeister im Spiegel früher Quellen,” p. 113, n. 37 and Paul W. Kroll, “Spreading Open the Barrier of Heaven,” Asiatische Studien / Etudes Asiatiques 40.1 (1986), pp. 22–39. The Palace of Eastern Florescence is repeatedly mentioned in the poetry of the perfected and the posthumous careers of mortals who have become immortal, as recorded in the Zhen gao. The importance of the Donghua Palace in Shangqing Daoism is further illustrated by the fact that the Huangting neijing jing was said to have been hidden within this palace. Hence the Huangting neijing jing has also been known under the title Jade Tablets of Eastern Florescence (Donghua yupian 東華玉篇). Cf. Yunji qiqian, 11.1b–3a. 140   Longzhang 龍章 and yunzhuan 雲篆 denote sacred Daoist writings and talismans in general. The two images were used by Tao Hongjing in his stela inscription for Ge Xuan, cf. Chen Yuan, Daojia jinshi lüe, p. 21. 141  The term used by Wu, shizi 師資, originates in Daode jing 27.

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the subtleties will remain uninvestigated. Therefore, if one reads extensively in order to eradicate doubts, and practises sparingly so as to extract the subtleties, one will neither fail in one’s exercices, nor suffer from idleness and suavity. The Way is to be found in utmost refinement (zhijing 至精). Do not strive for amplitude.142 Wu Yun’s views on the divine origins and the sacred nature of the Daoist scriptures vividly recall those voiced in the Shangqing revelations. As these writs were said to have their roots in the period before the primordial qi separated into yin and yang, their protective capacities and their role in re-creating order in times of anarchy were naturally considered unparallelled. Here as elsewhere Wu Yun indirectly warns contemporary readers against viewing the different scriptural traditions of Daoism as separate from one another. The Shangqing revelations may have taken Daoist thought and practice to a previously unknown level of sophistication, but their ultimate source was the same as that of the Covenantal Authority of the Orthodox and One (zhengyi mengwei 正一盟威) of the Celestial Masters. Without the goodwill of Mysterious Prime, the deified Laozi, they would never have been transmitted to mankind. The same paragraph is important for yet another reason. While expressing his gratitude at Mysterious Prime having communicated the Daode jing, expounded the Covenantal Authority of the Orthodox and One, and at having revealed the Shangqing scriptures, Wu Yun remains silent about the Lingbao revelations. Did Wu Yun look down upon the Lingbao corpus because it bore the stamp of the Buddhism he so totally rejected? Quite understandably, Wu Yun never voiced an opinion to that effect: it would have been judged highly indecent coming from a member of the Daoist clergy. Yet, it would seem as if Wu Yun chose to avoid referring to the Lingbao canon whenever given the chance. In the subsequent Xuangang chapter, however, this was obviously not the case. Wu Yun’s advice to strive for an equal balance between reading and practising has prepared the reader for the more detailed instructions of Xuangang 11, the title of which, ‘Study requires sequence’ (Xue ze you xu 學則有序), needs no further explanation. Although the Way is boundless, studying it requires sequence. Therefore, one begins with Zhengyi (the Way of the Celestial Masters), next moves to Dongshen (organized around the Sanhuang wen), dwells in Lingbao (the Dongxuan section of the canon) and comes to rest in Dongzhen 142   Zongxuan xiansheng Xuangang lun, 8b–9b.

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(containing the Shangqing scriptures).143 In all of this, extreme quietude is the “ancestor,” meticulous reflection is its application, retreat and abstinence are its tasks, compassion and kindness are its priorities. Thus, without extreme quietude, the spirit will not be concentrated;144 without meticulous reflection, stimulation will not be thorough; without retreat and abstinence, the Perfected will not respond; without compassion and kindness, merit will not be accomplished. When the spirit is concentrated, stimulation is thorough, the perfected respond and merit is accomplished, that is what we call “ascending the first steps toward immortality.” Afterwards, one practices exhaling [the old] and inhaling [the new] (tuna 吐納) so as to refine the viscera; one practices gymnastics (daoyin 導引) so as to harmonize the body; one gladdens the spirit with precious stanzas; one “benefits one’s bones” with jasper wine (qiongli 瓊醴). If in all of this, one receives instructions from one’s master and carefully ponders the mysteries of Perfection, the qi and vital fluids (ye 液) circulate without the least obstruction, and body and spirit bond in harmony 形 神合同. Without having any need for the “gold elixir” ( jindan), for jade or for the zhi-plant, one may await the cloud-canopied carriage covered with feathers.145 He who merely regards breathing exercises as excellent, and considers bending and stretching as essential, he who busies himself with medicinal substances and believes sundry methods to be beneficial, deserves to be called someone who understands the nourishment of the body (yangxing), he does not, however, understand treasuring the spirit (baoshen 寶神). He who does not understand treasuring the spirit will

143  This tallies with the hierarchy of ordination common in Tang times. Cf. the Zhengyi xiuzhen lüeyi 正一修真略儀 (D 1239) and C. Benn, The Cavern-Mystery Transmission, pp. 78–98. 144  Concentrating (lit., “coagulating”) the spirit (ningshen 凝神) is one of the qualities ascribed to the holy men on Mount Gushe, cf. Guo Qingfan, Zhuangzi jishi, 1.28. In Xuangang 19 (Zongxuan xiansheng Xuangang lun, 14a), it is named as one of the stages in the ascent to immortality: “The correct qi will secretly gather in one’s joints and intestines; naturally, the po-souls will be refined and the ‘corpses’ (the causes of decay and illness hidden within every human body) will be extinguished; the spirit will be concentrated and the body 體 pure; all yin sediments will be obliterated. Consequently, one’s physical form made whole 合形, one will rise up lightly.” 145   Yunping yugai 雲軿羽蓋, very similar to the Jinhua yunü shuo dan jing, Yunji qiqian, 64.5a, or to the hagiography of the Shangqing Perfected Person Lord Pei, Yunji qiqian, 105.9a.

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ultimately have no hope of becoming immortal, even though he would equal the turtle and the crane in age.146 In less than two hundred characters, Wu Yun has not only pointed at the integrated, hierarchical structure of Tang dynasty Daoism, he has also outlined a complete program for the cultivation of immortality. It is of the greatest importance to emphasize that, in Wu Yun’s view, Daoist practice must be as allinclusive as possible, allowing both body and spirit to be equally cultivated and refined. Mental concentration and quietude, altruism and religious discipline, breathing exercises and gymnastics, scriptural study and the guidance of a teacher, all are necessary ingredients in effectuating beneficial and lasting communication with the divinities that protect us. Only operational alchemy is considered unnecessary, yet, as will be made clear in the following chapter, it was not totally discarded. 146   Zongxuan xiansheng Xuangang lun, 9b–10a.

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The Worshippers of Mount Hua Glen Dudbridge The mountain known as Hua-shan 華山 is one of the most remarkable objects in China. Modern travellers see it for the first time as they move west through southern Shensi province towards the city of Sian: it towers up to the south of the road and the railway line, with a group of sharp peaks and sheer cliffs standing out above the range of mountains behind them. Mount Hua has been used through the ages as a place of religious retreat. It has also, from quite early in recorded history, been itself an object of sacrificial cult—indeed long before the imperial state set up its official cult of the Five Sacred Peaks, with this mountain as the so-called Western Peak.1 In the fourth century bc the states of Ch’in and Chin, according to old inscriptions, ‘disputed possession of the shrine’ (爭其祠), and fortifications were put up to the east of the site.2 Ch’in Shih-huang included the mountain in the imperial sacrifices Source: “The Worshippers of Mount Hua,” in Glen Dudbridge, Religious Experience and Lay Society in T’ang China: A Reading of Tai Fu’s Kuang-i chi, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995, 86–116. © Cambridge University Press, reproduced with permission. 1  On the early historical references, see Ku Chieh-kang, ‘Ssu-yüeh yü wu-yüeh’, in Shih-lin tsachih ch’u-pien, Peking 1963, pp. 42–44. For a more recent discussion of Mount Hua in this context, see Aat Vervoorn, ‘Cultural Strata of Hua Shan, the Holy Peak of the West’, Monumenta Serica 39, 1990–1, 1–30, particularly 3–13. 2  ‘Hua-yüeh ming’, cited in the sixth-century Shui-ching chu by Li Tao-yüan: see Shui-ching chu shu 19.1665. In T’ang times an inscription with this brief title was credited to Fu Hsüan 傳玄 (217–278): quotations in I-wen lei-chü 7.132, and (with variant title) Ch’u-hsüeh chi 5.101. Another such inscription, by the second-century calligrapher Chang Ch’ang 張昶, bears the title ‘Hsi-yüeh Hua-shan t’ang-ch’üeh pei-ming’ 西嶽華山堂闕碑銘; it was said to have been engraved in ad 205, the year before his death: see remarks by Chang Huai-kuan 張懷瓘 ( fl. 713–741) in Shu tuan B.17b–18a. This piece gives a fuller account of the ‘Ch’in and Chin’ episode: ‘When all the world was under one regime, the Son of Heaven controlled the rites. When feudal lords imposed their rule by force, powerful states took over the sacrifice. It is long since the town received the name Hua-yin [“northern slopes of Hua”], for thus it was recorded in the “Yü-kung” 禹貢 [chapter of Shang shu]. But it had a share in the territory of both Ch’in and Chin: on the western border of Chin it was called Yin-Chin 陰晉, on the eastern frontier of Ch’in it was called Ning-Ch’in 寧秦. As the township changed hands, so too did the rites. Both states used force in the struggle to present the sacrifice. The fortifications were strong, and their foundations still stand …’ (Ku-wen yüan 18.6ab). Shih Che-ts’un points out, in Shui-ching chu pei lu 4.176, that the phrases cited in Shui-ching chu form an intimate

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he set up in 221 bc; Han Wu-ti paid it homage in 110 bc; and when in 61 bc Han Hsüan-ti 宣帝 introduced regular sacrifices to the Five Peaks, he based the cult to Mount Hua at Hua-yin 華陰, below the mountain’s northern slopes.3

The Temple and Its Cult

Already in Former Han times there were temple structures here. Wuti 武帝 set up a complex of buildings, giving them titles dedicated to the spirits and immortals he supposed to inhabit the mountain. We have a short description by a man from a slightly later time—Huan T’an 桓譚 (ca. 43 bc–ad 28)—who visited the place in his youth and wrote a poetic rhapsody to inscribe on the temple walls. Setting the scene, he writes of the Palace of Assembled Spirits 集靈宮 at Hua-yin: The palace was below Mount Hua, erected by Emperor Wu. He wished to gather to him there the immortals Wang Ch’iao 王喬 and Ch’ih-sung 赤忪, so he named its hall ‘Immortal Lodging’ 存仙. The main gate faced south towards the mountain, inscribed with the title ‘Immortal Prospect Gate’ 望仙門 …4 So those early temple buildings already stood at the mountain’s northern foot. It is not clear what relation they bore to the site of the temple complex that now stands some 7 km north of the mountain and 2 km east of the county town Hua-yin, just south of the River Wei. Hsia Chen-ying, whose survey of the existing temple compound gives details of the late-imperial structures that remain on this site, reviews a number of theories on the date of its inauguration. parallel with others ascribed elsewhere to Chang Ch’ang’s inscription (cf. Shui-ching chu shu 19.1657 and 1662), although none of them appear in Chang’s transmitted text. Possibly both quotations stem rather from the now lost inscription by Fu Hsüan. It was apparently in 332 bc that the town Yin-Chin passed from the hands of Wei 魏 into those of Ch’in, to become Ning-Ch’in: Shih chi 5.205. The site of this ancient town is still found to the east of the present temple compound: see Hsia Chen-ying, ‘Hsi-yüeh Hua-shan ku-miao tiao-ch’a’, K’ao-ku-hsüeh chi-k’an 5, 1987, 194. 3  Shih chi 28.1371–2; Han shu 6.190, 25B.1249; Feng-su t’ung-i chiao-shih (ed. Wu Shu-p’ing, Tientsin 1980) 10.367. 4  ‘Shan hsien fu’ 山仙賦, quoted in I-wen lei-chü 78.1338. Cf. Han shu 28A.1543–4; Feng-su t’ung-i chiao-shih 10.367; Shui-ching chu shu 19.1657, quoting the Chang Ch’ang inscription. For another, only slightly later reference to these structures, see the stele inscription of 165 (introduced below, n. 15): Han Yen-hsi Hsi-yüeh Hua-shan pei k’ao 3.1b–2b.

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He finds none of them historically convincing, and seeks surer guidance in the evidence of stratigraphy, which reveals bricks of Han date at 1m below the ground surface, and in the discovery of a stone figure which he associates with the Han period.5 What does seem well established is that local officials of the Later Han carried out restoration and extensions here in the years following 161 and 178.6 A century later, in 287, officials ‘put spare labour to work building altar and temple, and planted cypress trees along each side of the avenue as far as the northern slopes’.7 The cypress trees would remain a feature here for centuries to come, and aged specimens are still to be found near the site.8 They possibly served a ritual function, defining a ceremonial avenue for communication between temple and mountain. In due course the Northern Wei emperors, as rulers of this part of northern China with their capital city at Ta-t’ung, ‘set up a new temple’ at Mount Hua in 435 and restored it again in 453, both times celebrating their work with stone inscriptions.9 By the early sixth century Li Tao-yüan 酈道元, in his famous topographical work Shui-ching chu, could give these clear directions for visitors to the site: There are often enquiring men who purposely climb Mount Hua to look at the traces [left by the legendary Chü-ling 巨靈 in shaping the mountain]. From the Lower Temple 下廟 they pass along the lines of cypress,10 going south for 11 li, and turn east for 3 li, where they reach the Middle 5  Hsia Chen-ying, ‘Hsi-yüeh Hua-shan ku-miao tiao-ch’a’, pp. 204–205. It proves difficult to find reliable early authority for either of the dates reviewed (134 bc and ad 454): I cannot trace the former in either of the T’ang histories (where a citation is allegedly drawn), nor the latter in any source earlier than the doubtful document discussed below in n. 18. 6  For the reference to Wang Mang and a description of how buildings were restored and old inscriptions replaced from 161 on, see Han Yen-hsi Hsi-yüeh Hua-shan pei k’ao 3.1–3a. For the restorations of 178–180, which featured wall-paintings of rare treasures and strange monsters, see the inscriptions of those years transcribed in Ku-wen yüan 18.1a–5a. 7  Inscription of ad 304 quoted in Shui-ching chu shu 19.1663. Shih Che-ts’un casts doubt on the date T’ai-k’ang 太康 8 [287] and suspects a mistake for Yüan-k’ang 元康 8 [298]: Shuiching chu pei lu 4.172. 8  Hsia Chen-ying, ‘Hsi-yüeh ku-miao tiao-ch’a’, pp. 200, 205. 9  Wei shu 108/1.2738 and 2739. For the inscriptions, dated 439 and 455, see Pao-k’o ts’ungpien 10.33b–34a, citing Chi-ku lu mu by Ou-yang Fei 歐陽棐 (1047–1113). The former recorded, in summary: ‘During the T’ai-yen period [435–440] a new temple was set up and sacrifice was offered through Taoist priests, with supplication in spring and thanksgiving in autumn. When major events took place they were reported.’ 10   Ch’u-hsüeh chi 5.99: ‘At the foot of the mountain, setting out from the lines of cypress at the Mount Hua Temple…’.

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Shrine 中祠. Then out to the south-west for another 5 li, where they reach the Southern Shrine 南祠, known as the Shrine of the Northern Lord 北君祠. All who wish to climb the mountain offer prayers when they reach this place. And from here they make south up the valley for 7 li.11 The relationship between Northern Temple 北廟 (where nine ancient stelae still stood) and southern (‘Shrine of the Northern Lord’) would remain the same, complete with cypress trees, even in the topography of the T’ai-p’ing huan-yü chi in the 980s.12 By this time, too, our historical evidence takes on a new, anecdotal dimension. A passage in the official biography of Ta-hsi Wu 達希武 (504–570), a veteran general of the Northern Chou dynasty, begins: When Wu was at T’ung-chou [from 564] there was a period of drought, and Kao-tsu [of the Northern Chou] commanded Wu to sacrifice to Mount Hua. The Temple of the Mount 嶽廟 had stood from olden times at the foot of the mountain and was the place where prayer and supplication normally took place. Wu said to his staff: ‘I … should not remain at the place of normal sacrifice, as everyone else does. I must display my sincerity by climbing the summit, and there seek out the divine mystery.’13 This passage was written by a historian looking back from the early years of the T’ang dynasty. He makes it clear that the official Ta-hsi Wu, in deciding actually to climb the mountain to offer his sacrifice, first considered and decided against offering it in the usual place. Long before the T’ang period, then, as all these references show, the Temple of the Mount stood north of the mountain itself. Past it ran the government road which led from the capital Ch’ang-an to Lo-yang and the provinces of the empire beyond.14 When we come to study the 11   Shui-ching chu shu 4.313. Almost the same passage is quoted in Ch’u-hsüeh chi 5.99, from sources given as Shu-cheng chi 述征記 and Hua-shan chi 華山記. 12   T’ai-p’ing huan-yü chi 29.10a. 13   Chou shu 19.305–6. For the date of the T’ung-chou appointment, see tctc 169.5241, under T’ien-chia 5/4. 14  According to a note in T’ang hui-yao 27.520, the government road ran past the north end of the temple until K’ai-yüan 12/11/10 [30 November 724], when Hsüan-tsung required the local prefect to erect, ‘upon the thoroughfare to the south of the Temple of Mount Hua’, the stone stele bearing his own imperial inscription, cited and discussed below (see n. 19). The note adds: ‘The old road had been north of [the Temple of] the Mount, but because of this was moved to the south of [the Temple of] the Mount.’ See Yen Keng-wang, T’ang-tai chiao-t’ung t’u-k’ao, Taipei 1985, vol. 1, p. 33 and map 2.

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contacts between the god of this mountain and society at large in T’ang times we shall see how important this position was, with its access to the passing traffic of the whole empire. The story of the temple buildings from the time of Han Wu-ti to the T’ang shows the cult activity itself taking different forms. For Wu-ti the point of interest was the supposed presence of spirits and immortal residents on the mountain. Later this changed. The famous inscription of ad 165 puts it clearly: In the time of Chung-tsung [i.e., Han Hsüan-ti, r. 74–48 bc] envoys were regularly sent bearing insignia of office to offer sacrifice there—each year one prayer and three sacrifices. But this was not kept up in later times. Under the fallen Hsin 新 dynasty the site gradually became a deserted ruin. To this day the traces of walls and signs of a fortified camp are still there. At the start of the Chien-wu period [ad 25] a sacrifice took place here, but the rites were subsequently dropped. Only the local prefect would go and pay sacrifice at the seasons of the year. There was always a response to prayers and requests in times of drought and storm. And for a hundred years from that time, whenever events have taken the emperor on a tour in the west, he has always offered sacrifice in passing.15 These changing styles well represent the pattern of worship under the emperors who ruled northern China, from Ch’in and Han through Wei and Chou to Sui and T’ang. The sacrifices to Mount Hua served now as an extension of the imperial state cult, now as a seasonal local observance, now as an institutional plea for help in times of natural disaster.16

15  The text, gathered from rubbings, is reproduced and studied in Han Yen-hsi Hsi-yüeh Huashan pei, Institute of Chinese Studies, Chinese University of Hong Kong, 1978. The history of this stele and the fate of its classic rubbings are traced by Shih Che-ts’un in Shui-ching chu pei lu 4.173–4; according to Ku Yen-wu, in Chin-shih wen-tzu chi 1.14b, the original stele was destroyed by the earthquake which devastated the region on 23 January 1556 (see Ming shih 18.243). A fragment of stone bearing some phrases from the inscription’s opening passage was recovered in 1957: see Li Tzu-ch’un, ‘Hsi-yüeh Hua-shan pei mi-te ts’an-shih i p’ien’, Wen-wu ts’an-k’ao tzu-liao 1957.5, 80–1; and Hsia Chen-ying, ‘Hsi-Yüeh Hua-shan ku-miao tiao-ch’a’, p. 204. 16  The rites created in 61 bc prescribed ‘one prayer and three sacrifices’ (一禱三祠) as the annual programme for all the sacred peaks but T’ai-shan: Han shu 25B.1249. For later references apart from those given above in notes 6, 7, 11, see also San-kuo chih 4.150 (for ad 264), Wei shu 7B.182 (497), Chin-shih ts’ui-pien 37.1a ff. (567), Sui shu 7.140 (614), cts 1.10 (619), T’ang hui-yao 22.427 (619).

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For the T’ang K’ai-yüan period (713–742) we actually have a liturgical text giving the form of rites used in the annual worship of the Five Peaks—in the case of the Western Peak in the first month of autumn—with cantor (贊唱者), invoker (祝), presenters of the initial, secondary and final offerings (初獻亞 獻終獻), and many other participants.17 It is the picture of an established, impersonal state institution. But the emperor Hsüan-tsung himself, in whose name these ‘K’ai-yüan rites’ took place, presents a new and interesting case. He claimed a personal affinity with the mountain. The first public sign of this came in 713, when he conferred upon the god of Mount Hua the title Metal Heaven King 金天王.18 Then, on a progress to the Eastern Capital Lo-yang in 724, he stopped at the temple to unveil an inscription in his own name reflecting upon the mountain cult.19 Here is part of his text: 17   Ta T’ang K’ai-yüan li 35.1a–5a. This revision of the state ritual code was completed and approved in 732: see David McMullen, State and Scholars in T’ang China, p. 134. 18  Hsüan-tsung conferred this title in September 713, soon after taking full power in July of that year: cts 8.171 (wrongly giving ‘9th month’ for ‘8th month’), 23.904; T’ang hui-yao 47.834; Ts’e-fu yüan-kuei 33.7a; T’ang ta chao-ling chi 74.418 (text of decree). A document described as a ‘writ’ (冊) conferring the title on the god is found in a twelfth-century source, Hsi-yüeh Hua-shan chih 西嶽華山誌 (preface 1184) by Wang Ch’u-i 王處一, preserved in Tao tsang: hy 307. The writ is the last item in that work and ends, perhaps fragmentarily, with the unhistorical date ‘T’ang Hsien-t’ien 3’. This is not, however, a Tang document: 1. it incorporates a further title, Shun-sheng ti 順聖帝, conferred on the mount by a Sung emperor in 1011: see Hsü tzu-chih t’ung-chien ch’ang-pien 75.1722; 2. it observes none of the formal and stylistic conventions of imperial writs (冊文) as transmitted in T’ang ta chao-ling chi 1, 7, 8, 34, 37, 74.418, etc.; 3. most of its text is lifted from Hsüan-tsung’s 724 inscription (and the same is true of the scrappy ‘Imperial preface by T’ang Hsüan-tsung’ which stands at the head of Wang’s compilation). We can explain these features only by supposing that it is a fragment of some later piece patched together for a different purpose: broken off after the ‘Hsien-t’ien’ date, which we must suppose corrupted in transmission, it took on the superficial appearance of a T’ang document. 19  The original stele, said to be fifty feet high, was vandalized by rebels near the end of the T’ang, leaving only four readable characters: Chin-shih ts’ui-pien 75.18ab. What remains of it still stands in the temple compound—3.1 m. long, 1.6 m. thick, 2.1 m. high: see Hsia Chen-ying, ‘Hsi-yüeh Hua-shan ku-miao tiao-ch’a’, p. 201. The text survives in literary tradition: see T’ang wen ts’ui 50.2a–3a, attributing the actual composition of this piece in the emperor’s name to his distinguished scholar-minister Chang Yüeh 張説. There are variant dates: K’ai-yüan 10 [ad 722] in cts 23.904; K’ai-yüan 11 [723] in T’ang wen ts’ui 50.3a; K’ai-yüan 12/11/4 [24 November 724] in cts 8.187, T’ang hui-yao 27.520 and Ts’e-fu yüankuei 33.9b. I adopt the last because of its precise position in a chronology and because of independent evidence that the stele was displayed to the court on K’ai-yüan 13/5/16 [30 June 725]: Ts’e-fu yüan-kuei 24.13a, cf. T’ang hui-yao 27.520. The poems which Hsüantsung exchanged with three high ministers on this occasion are collected in wyyh 170.11ab.

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From the Hsia to the Sui, through five royal dynasties and three thousand years, the sacrificial rites continued in succession, the old rules remained unchanged. Altar and temple were rebuilt from age to age, the single prayer with threefold sacrifice was offered each year without fail … With its care and protection high heaven brought fragrance to my glorious ancestors … We have commanded the prefectural general20 to express our reverence at all seasons of the year. We have raised [Mount Hua] to the level and rank of king, we have given him the tide of Metal Heaven. Why should this be? There may be a reason for it. When I was born, Jupiter foreshadowed hsü 戌 and the moon was at mid-Autumn.21 I received the rich virtue of Shao-hao 少昊;22 I coincided in the hour of my birth with Mount T’ai-hua.23 So at all times, waking and sleeping, the Divine Peak has extended to me his divine communication. Before votive jade and silk have been set before him, deep insight has already laid open my undeclared intent; though my offerings of peppered rice24 are but poor fare, great blessings have indeed gathered about me in due time …25 ‘In China,’ wrote Chavannes, ‘mountains are deities.’26 And with this mountain deity Hsüan-tsung now claimed personal communion, a communion mediated visibly by offerings, invisibly through intuition. By the testimony of this inscription he stood in the temple as two figures, not one, for he belonged both with the long line of emperors who had sacrificed here on behalf of the human race, and also with the many individuals of his own age who came here for insights and assistance in living their own lives.27 20  ‘Prefectural general’ 州將. For a note on this term of Han origin, denoting the official in charge of a prefecture, see Feng-su t’ung-i chiao-shih, p. 93, n. 2. 21  That is, the year was at yu 酉 and the month was the eighth. Both dates, in traditional China, bore an affinity with the West and with the element Metal. Hsüan-tsung had been born in the eighth month of the year i-yu [685]. 22  The legendary son of the Yellow Emperor whose kingly quality derived from the virtue of metal and who bore the name Chin-t’ien-shih 金天氏. The post-Han mythology appears in Shih-i chi, attrib. Wang Chia 王嘉, 1.12–14. 23  Because it was the Western Peak. 24  Read 椒糈: ritual offerings designed to attract divine beings, according to Li sao 離騷 and Wang I’s 王逸 comment in Wen-hsüan 32.14a. 25   T’ang wen ts’ui 50.2b. 26  Chavannes, Le T’ai chan, p. 3. 27  This contrasts with his attitude to the imperial sacrifice at T’ai-shan in 725: ‘In performing these acts now I do so entirely to seek blessings for the people and have no other private prayers to make’ (cts 23.898; hts 14.352; Chavannes, Le T’ai chan, p. 224).

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An ancient tradition once credited a spirit from the vicinity of Mount Hua with knowing and predicting the imminent death of Ch’in Shih-huang in 210 bc.28 In later centuries it was clear that the god of the mount had foreknowledge of other human destinies. Men came to his temple to learn their future. A pattern was evident already in the sixth century, with this anecdote of P’ei Chi 裴寂 (569–628): In the Sui K’ai-huang reign [581–601] he became a Privy Guardsman of the Left. But the family was poor, and he had no means to build a career. He always made his way to the capital on foot.29 Passing by the Mount Hua Temple he sacrificed and offered this prayer: ‘Poor and wretched as I am, I make bold to present this heartfelt plea. If you possess divine power, examine my destiny. If I can expect wealth and honour, you must send me a lucky dream.’ Then, with repeated bows, he left. And that night he dreamed that a white-haired old man said to him: ‘Not until the age of thirty will you gain your ambition. In the end you will hold no less than the highest ministerial rank.’30 A similar tale was told of the early T’ang hero Li Ching 李靖 (571–649).31 While their career was yet unformed, the pattern went, such men addressed the god with offerings on their own behalf and with words in their own voice, as they sought to penetrate the mystery of their own future. And the response came to them personally, without other mediation, as a dream or a disembodied voice. T’ang literature is rich in anecdotes like these. But we have more direct and eloquent testimony from a scholar who passed the Temple of the Mount on his way to the capital in 806. Chia Sung 賈竦 takes us close to his experience there in a long poem, carved on stone and preserved at the temple … 28   Shih chi 6.259; Han shu 27BA.1399–1400; Hou Han shu 30B.1078–9; Lun heng chiao-shih 22.921–2 (‘Chi yao’ 紀妖); Sou-shen chi 4.48; Shui-ching chu shu 19.1564–5; Ch’u-hsüeh chi 5.100. 29  Under the T’ang administration the Privy Guards 親衛, ranking officials staffing various corps of guards in the imperial palace, served tours of duty lasting one month. The number of tours was defined by the distance of their homes from the capital: Ta T’ang liu-tien 5.13b–14b; des Rotours, Traité des fonctionnaires, p. 105, n. 2, and p. 503, n. 3. P’ei Chi, on this analogy, would move regularly between capital and home. 30   c ts 57.2285. 31  By the eighth-century Liu Su 劉餗, Sui T’ang chia-hua, 1.5; tpkc 296.2361. The tale gave rise to a spurious inscription purporting to contain Li Ching’s address to the god: see comments collected in Chin-shih ts’ui-pien 40.31b–34b; rubbing reproduced in Pei-ching t’u-shu-kuan ts’ang Chung-kuo li-tai shih-k’o t’a-pen hui-pien, Cheng-chou 1989–91, vol. 41, p. 101. Paul W. Kroll - 978-90-04-38020-2 Downloaded from Brill.com11/15/2020 06:09:18AM via San Francisco State University

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Travelling in the evening of the year, I enter the hall to worship at the precious throne. With libation of wine I penetrate to the divine spirit, Opening with words full of eagerness and ardour. His senior officers extend in dense array, Lances and halberds bristle dauntingly. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . No swallows or sparrows haunt the curved rafters, Snakes and lizards are quelled by the jade throne. Yet all around I seem to hear sounds, And dimly I have the sense of a personal encounter. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I come now on my way to the Imperial Capital, Fortunate to fall in with this tradition from T’ao-t’ang 陶唐.32 Straight and true, I know he will not play me false: I desire him to say which path I shall take.33 Chia follows the now classic pattern—offers his own libation, voices his own words, addresses a god perceived as ‘straight and true’, and half persuades himself that from the majestic figure surrounded by staff officers and armed guards there comes a whisper or flicker of direct response. He consciously aligns himself with the ‘tradition from T’ao-t’ang’—a line of emperors which, to his eyes, reaches back to the beginning of history. And his poem lies in a single continuum with Hsüan-tsung’s inscription—both products of literary high culture, both reflecting on a divine authority as ancient and central as any known to history. Their deity belonged to a group established for centuries in the hierarchy of state cults, the Five Peaks and Four Streams 五嶽四瀆, who now enjoyed a canonical ritual status equal to the Three Lords 三公, highest ministers in the Confucian state.34 His new kingly title, the first such conferred on a mountain, expressly linked him to a son of the Yellow Emperor. In all this the ideas of role and perception are crucial. For scholars like Chia Sung found their orthodox and solemn vision threatened by rival perceptions

32  T’ao-t’ang: the mythical emperor Yao 堯, whose resignation of the throne to Shun 舜 was followed by sacrifices at the sacred mountains, Hua-shan in the eighth month. See Shang shu, ‘Shun tien’ 舜典 [3.9b]. 33   Yung-chou chin-shih chi 5.6ab; Chin-shih ts’ui-pien 105.5b–6a. 34  As laid down in Li chi, ‘Wang chih’ 王制 [12.16b]: the Five Peaks ranked with the Three Lords, the Four Streams with the feudal nobility (諸侯). Cf. T’ang hui-yao 22.427, 429; des Rotours, Traité des fonctionnaires, pp. 19–20. Paul W. Kroll - 978-90-04-38020-2 Downloaded from Brill.com11/15/2020 06:09:18AM via San Francisco State University

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and jostled by different forms of worship. With his privileged knowledge, it seems, the god of the mount was also felt to wield authority and judicial power. Custodian of men’s books of destiny, he was also arbiter of human souls. His presence was felt in darkness and storm: ‘At night, when the wind rises, I sense the god’s coming’, wrote Wang Chien 王建 (b. 766?).35 And Li Shan-fu 李山峬 (chin-shih candidate between 860 and 873) echoed him a century later: Over the walls white paper cash flutters like snow, Before the hall gloomy cypress trees roar like thunder. I know you are darkly judging the affairs of men: Do not condemn the living in their dreams!36 These lines betray a quite different level of cult activity at the temple. Votive paper cash in no way corresponds to the meat and alcohol of orthodox Confucian sacrifice. It belonged to the ‘vulgar custom’ (里俗) of prayer and communication with spirits of the dead by shamans and mediums. And at this temple it served in the trade of a large attendant population of female professionals.37 Wang Chien’s friend and exact contemporary Chang Chi 張籍 (766–ca. 830) describes them curtly: Below the Metal Heaven Temple, on the road to the Western Capital, Shamanesses (巫女) in hordes roam about like writhing smoke. With handfuls of paper cash they greet passing travellers, Urging them to pray for blessing and grace in the presence of the god.38 Chia Sung, who had approached the temple with such fervour and unction, was appalled by these aggressive, business-hungry women. He made no secret of his feelings:

35  ‘Hua-shan miao’, Wang Chien shih chi 9.86. Although Wang Chien’s date of graduation as chin-shih is given as 775 in certain Sung and Yüan sources, there is other evidence to suggest that the poet was born ca. 766 and that he held the examination competition in contempt. The 775 graduate seems to have been another Wang Chien. See Fu Hsüan-ts’ung, ed., T’ang ts’ai-tzu chuan chiao-chien 4.151–2. 36  ‘Yü hou kuo Hua-yüeh miao’, in Ch’üan T’ang shih 643.7366. 37  See Chapter 3, p. 54, with n. 11. Hou Ching-lang cites some references to the use of paper cash in the Mount Hua cult: Monnaies d’offrande et la notion de trésorerie dans la religion chinoise, p. 9. 38   Chang Chi shih chi, Peking 1959, 6.79. For Chang Chi’s date of birth I follow the conclusions in Fu Hsüan-ts’ung, ed., T’ang ts’ai-tzu chuan chiao-chien 5.556–7.

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The deity himself is faithful and true, With right judgement assessing loss and gain. But alas, intelligence is beguiled, ‘False words’ let shamans and seers run wild.39 One follows another, custom sets in— A wearisome bane to the local village folk, A thorn in the flesh to travellers passing through.40 Wang Chien had seen them too, and sounds similarly shocked: The shamanesses make travellers stop to buy spirit trays (神盤),41 They struggle to take their lutes into the temple to play.42 The tension between these different styles of worship and prayer speaks out most clearly in two short literary works of the period. First the confident voice of the statesman and poet Yüan Chen 元稹 (779–831): The shamaness of Hua43 Here is a man, by the side of the god. The temple is dim, the god is mute. With the god so silent, what can I do? If I wish to meet him, how can I manage it? A shamaness asks me for what I have: ‘Access to the god lies in my hands. 39  ‘False words’: a phrase from Ode 183, ‘Mien shui’ 沔水: ‘The false words of the people / Why does no one stop them?’ For ‘shamans and seers’: see below, n. 50. 40   Yung-chou chin-shih chi 5.6ab; Chin-shih ts’ui-pien 105.5b. 41  For a description of the divination tray and its use by female mediums in modern Korea, see Laurel Kendall, Shamans, Housewives, and Other Restless Spirits: Women in Korean Ritual Life, Honolulu 1985, p. 72. 42   Wang Chien shih chi 9.86. 43   Yüan Chen chi 25.300. The piece is dated ching-hsü 景戌 (= ping-hsü 丙戌), which corresponds to the year 806, when Yüan was aged 28 sui: see Hanabusa Hideki and Maegawa Yukio, Gen Shin kenkyū, Kyoto 1977, p. 18 and p. 316, no. 728. It was an eventful year in the poet’s life. Spending the spring in preparations for the palace examination, he passed it on 4 May and a fortnight later received appointment as Remembrancer of the Left (左拾遺). But in October he was demoted to a junior post in Lo-yang, and within very few days suffered the loss of his mother, who died in Ch’ang-an. He retired from office to observe the period of ritual mourning. It is not clear at what point he might have sought oracular guidance at the Mount Hua Temple.

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I can present you before him, And the god will speak, not in his own person, but through my mouth. If you wish to meet the god and gain personal safety, Then buy my spirit-cash, purchase my wine! I am equipped with a spirit tray: If you present this tray the god will grant you safety. If you do not, your way will be hard to go— Your carriage wrecked on land, your boat tossed by waves!’ I sighed deep when I heard these words. ‘How could the deity play false to the upright and just? With you on the main road, who can travel to north or south? Wantonly you claim to speak for the god, assume his strength. Yes, assume his strength—yet the god does not come in meeting. Travellers on the road cannot get through. If we wish to meet the god we must get rid of shamanesses like you. How could it be through you that the god lends his blessings? You, shamaness! Have you really not heard? Rather than work your charms in this place of mystery, Far better work them in the kitchen! If I must grovel before a shamaness like you, I would prefer to drive on my way! Shamaness! Look after yourself, now. My heart has “prayers of my own”.’44 With this we can compare the reflections of Ch’en An 陳黯, a provincial official of the mid-ninth century, who faced the same challenge in a short prose essay:45 As I came from east of the pass to attend the Rendering of Account to the Throne,46 I passed by the Temple of Mount Hua, where a shamaness led me to offer up prayer. I removed my carriage roof and put my dress in order, took incense-burner and wine-cup, and moved forward to bow with lowered head. Then I withdrew in perfect silence. 44  ‘Prayers of my own’ 丘之禱. The reference is to Lun-yü 7/35. The words are spoken by Confucius (‘Ch’iu’ 丘) as, according to the traditional interpretation, he affirms the value of his own lifelong conduct in preference to prayers offered on his behalf. 45  Ch’en An, ‘Pai yüeh yen’ 拜嶽言, T’ang wen ts’ui 45.1b. 46  ‘Rendering of Account to the Throne’ 隨計 The annual visit by delegates of prefectural government to report to the throne on their administrative and pastoral duties: see Dudbridge, The Tale of Li Wa, p. 153.

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The Worshippers Of Mount Hua

1927

The shamaness said: ‘Traveller! Is this journey in pursuit of fame? Or office? Why do you perform the ritual acts of prayer without the words? When the god makes his presence felt, surely his answer will unfold?’ Earnestly I replied: ‘I have come here to worship because this mountain is chief among all others—like sages and worthies among men, like pine and orchid among plants and trees, like the Yellow River and the ocean among streams and rivers, like dragon and phoenix among fish and birds. Lofty and towering, it rams against the sky, props up the void. As an object of state ritual it is right that men should show it honour. When  I worship here, my thoughts are engrossed with my own veneration. In framing words, I would be fearful about whether the god could hear me. Moreover, if the god’s powers of vision and hearing really are high and deep, he will most certainly reward the good with blessings, the sinners with misfortune. And if my conduct measures up to his standards he will most surely look upon me accordingly. Could I pray to the god if I were deceiving him? What need47 of shamans? If my words are well judged let them be a rebuke to those who speak folly!’ All three writers quoted here are troubled by the same tension. And although they dramatize it through external confrontations and dialogue with the shaman women, we sense that some kind of internal questioning and uncertainty is being played out. Ch’en An self-consciously gropes for an inner spirituality in which actual communication with the deity is neither sought nor required. In this he seems to differ from Yüan Chen and Chia Sung, whose poems both express a clear desire to have their wishes heard and responded to. Unlike them again, Ch’en puts his view defensively, using the shamaness to give (with incredulity and even shock) a more material view of traffic with the god—the view which by implication was expected of normal visitors here. And for all their defiant and hectoring tone, Chia Sung’s and Yüan Chen’s rebukes manage to imply that same background expectation. Clearly these women could not have plied their trade at the temple for two centuries or more if many customers had not been ready to engage them.48 Yet, interestingly, to have dealings with them could bring a stigma. When the provincial governor and ex-minister Yang Shou 楊收 stopped at the temple in 867, presented clothing and engaged shamanesses to pray for him there,

47  ‘Need’. For 心 read 必. 48  Nakamura Jihee 中村治兵衛 cites some further references to temple shamans in Chūgoku no shāmanizumu no kenkyū, Tokyo 1992, pp. 37–39.

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the local magistrate denounced it as a fault.49 The episode is instructive from both points of view: it shows up how ready a scholar-official could be to approach the god through professional mediums, but it also reveals a censorious orthodoxy that publicly rejected this kind of worship—the same orthodoxy that inspired the poems and prose we have just looked at. It is as though the scholar-elite professed one style of worship, but tended to practise another. Now these professionals were, according to the classic definition in Hsü Shen’s dictionary of ad 121, ‘invokers (祝), women able to serve formless beings and cause spirits to descend by means of dancing’.50 Once they had played an institutional role in state religion, but now they were marginal and ambiguous in the eyes of the ruling elite. Already in the second century Wang Fu 王符 had deplored their wide and damaging following among women, the social harm they caused with their exorcistic medicine,51 while in those same times the calligraphier Chang Ch’ang 張昶 had celebrated their presence as one of the splendours of Mount Hua: The cliffs and steeps are thick with magicians (方士) of all provinces of the land who have come from afar; the valleys and gorges overflow with the shamans (巫覡) who take charge of invocation in country districts. All are buoyant of purpose, joyful of mien, because certain that the road to the heavens can be surmounted, sure that flourishing good fortune can be brought down here below.52 These were the forerunners of the women milling about at the Mount Hua Temple, who now offered travellers professional access to the god of the mount through their techniques of invocation and inspired trance. To learn more about them we must look not to the prose essays and shih 詩 poetry which carried the values of the high culture and spoke in its rhetoric, but to the rich anecdotal literature of the eighth and ninth centuries. Two or three stories from that literature will show the scope of the women’s work. They will also raise some of the characteristic questions of interpretation that form the main focus of this study.

49   t ctc 250.8118–9, for Hsien-t’ung 8/7/ chia-tzu 甲子. 50   Shuo-wen chieh-tzu 5A.11b. The definition of hsi 覡 which follows identifies this word as the male equivalent of wu 巫. 51   Ch’ien-fu lun chien, ed. Wang Chi-p’ei, Peking 1979, ‘Fu-ch’ih’ 浮侈, 3.125. 52  ‘Hsi-yüeh Hua-shan t’ang-ch’üeh pei-ming’, in Ku-wen yüan 18.6b–7a; cf. I-wen lei-chü 7.133. On this inscription, see above, n. 2.

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The Worshippers Of Mount Hua

1929

A good century and a half after Hsüan-tsung’s visit to the temple his experience was recalled in a story which now embroidered the god’s title and the emperor’s inscription with a face-to-face meeting between the two: As his carriage reached Hua-yin the emperor saw the god of the mount come several li to greet him. He questioned his attendants, but none of them could see him. So he summoned shamanesses to ask where the god was. An old shamaness called Ah-ma-p’o 阿馬婆 was the only one to report: ‘Third Son (San-lang 三郎) is just by the left side of the road, with vermilion hair-band and purple gown, welcoming Your Majesty.’ The emperor looked round at him with a smile, then through the shamaness commanded the god to go back ahead of him. Reaching the temple, he saw the god, bearing arms, prostrate at the south-east of the courtyard, beneath a tall cypress tree. Once again he called Ah-ma-p’o to question her, and her reply matched what the emperor had seen. Showing greater ceremony and respect, the emperor told Ah-ma-p’o to convey his regards and turned about. He issued a decree ennobling [Mount Hua] as Metal Heaven King before all53 the other sacred peaks. And in his own hand he composed a stele inscription as a mark of imperial favour and distinction. The stele is more than fifty feet high, more than ten feet wide, and four or five feet thick. No stele in the world compares with it.54 Apocryphal the story certainly is: its collapsed chronology of kingly title (713) and imperial stele (724) gives evidence enough of that. Yet it is not completely implausible in character. Little more than a dozen years after composing the Mount Hua inscription, Hsüan-tsung, deeply absorbed in Taoist techniques and commerce with spirits, promoted the ritual specialist Wang Yü 王崳 to high office. Wang, we read, ‘perpetually offered prayers, or burned paper cash, beseeching blessing and protection much like a shaman. On this account he enjoyed disproportionate grace and favour.’55 An emperor with such religious tastes might well not disdain the visions of a shamaness. And for her part, in serving him as a seer and communicator with spirits, she practised one of the

53  ‘All’. For 詣 read 諸. 54   K’ai T’ien ch’uan-hsin chi, by Cheng Ch’i (d. 899), 3a; tpkc 283.2257–8. On the author, see cts 179.4662–3; hts 183.5384. 55   c ts 130.3617; hts 109.4107; tctc 214.6831.

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functions most widely attested for the shaman’s trade since the Han.56 Her ‘village granny’ name, too, finds many echoes in T’ang texts.57 Ah-ma-p’o’s description of the god is interesting for its iconography. The ‘white-haired old man’ of P’ei Chi’s dream is forgotten. The figure here wears the purple robe of senior ministers, befitting a dignitary of the first grade.58 In this he resembles the city god of Hua-chou 滑州 in story 77—‘a man little more than three feet tall and dressed in purple gown and vermilion hat’ (compare the ‘vermilion hair-band’ of Mount Hua).59 It is as though we are reading descriptions of the gods’ own images as their temples presented them to public view—diminutive in scale and carefully decked in robes, like their counterparts in Chinese temples now. The transcendent descends to the everyday. The numinous presence whose intimacy Hsüan-tsung cherished in 724 here becomes a mute and compliant subordinate, grovelling before his imperial master and patronized by him.60 Such, at the end of the T’ang, is the measure of a new, more public perception of the god which made itself felt over 150 years. He now has a vernacular name and a vernacular mythology. ‘Third Son’ is a style shared by gods far and wide through the Chinese tradition.61 In relation to Mount Hua the name appears, as above, on the lips of shamans and in other informal contexts, directly 56  Documentation on this subject is provided by J. J. M. de Groot, The Religious System of China, vol. 6, Leiden 1910, pp. 1212–26. 57  Cf. Ho-p’o 何婆 and Ah-lai-p’o 阿來婆 in Ch’ao-yeh ch’ien-tsai, by Chang Cho, 3.63–4. 58  ‘Subsequently [to 656] purple was made the colour for robes of the Third Grade [and above]’: hts 24.529. 59   t pkc 302.2396. These colours represented the uniforms of high-ranking officials: cf. Ch’ao-yeh ch’ien-tsai 3.64, where ‘vermilion and purple filled up the gate’ of the shamaness Ah-lai-p’o. 60  Anecdotes of Hsüan-tsung’s mediated contacts with the god of Mount Hua can be found elsewhere, as in the ninth-century I-shih 逸史, by Lu Chao 盧肇(?) (preface 847), as quoted in Lei shuo 27.8ab: ‘When Ming-huang had concluded his personal ceremonies of offering to the Western Peak and was moving off to the east, a shaman spoke as he went out of the temple gate: “The Metal Heaven King [ for 大 read 天], wearing armour and wielding a halberd, is walking along leading your carriage.” The emperor ordered fine horses and strong knights to conduct him. The shaman expressed approval: “The Metal Heaven King offers humble thanks.” After travelling some li the horses were sweating and unable to move on. In all there were ten changes of horses before they stopped at the palace. The shaman said: “The Metal Heaven King begs leave to return.” ’. 61  Cf. San-kuo chih 48.1171–2, n. 2, in which P’ei Sung-chih’s commentary cites Chiang-piao chuan 江表傳, by Yü P’u 虞溥; also Ch’ing shih kao 357.11329. In the case of T’ai-shan the style Third Son applies not to the god of the mount himself, but to one of his sons: see Chiu Wu-tai shih 44.605; tpkc 298.2373–4 (story 68), 305.2418 (Chi-i chi).

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The Worshippers Of Mount Hua

1931

identified with the god of the mount himself.62 The traditions revealed in anecdote books of that period (and more richly in the Kuang-i chi than any other) show him as a rough, violent personality with a poorly disciplined domestic regime. Third Son is a judge of the dead and registrar of the living, though some way down the divine hierarchy.63 His dangerous power can be ritually controlled only by discipline from the highest authority.64 He has a predatory appetite for the wives of mortal men.65 And his own domestic affairs are in disorder. An illtreated bride causes divine warfare to scorch and blacken his mountain.66 His other womenfolk are wanton and promiscuous. He incurs large gambling debts and meets them by selling other-worldly appointments for paper cash.67 It was apparently to the hero of this colourful and vulgar mythology, which we study below, that the shamanesses of Mount Hua offered access. The temple cult did not depend entirely on the traffic of career-minded personnel that streamed past on the road to Ch’ang-an. Occasional references show other kinds of worshipper. An early story with an internal date of 660 mentions a man praying at Mount Hua for a son.68 Another, period unknown, deals with the case of a graduate, Chang K’o-ch’in 張克勤, who bought a concubine:

62  Cf. tpkc 341.2705, citing Ho-tung chi 河東記: ‘The Third Son mentioned by the shamaness was Metal Heaven [King].’ Wei Chuang’s 韋莊 famous but long-lost poem ‘Ch’in-fu yin’ 秦婦吟, finally recovered in manuscript from the Tun-huang cave library, contains a passage on the god of Mount Hua; in one manuscript (P 2700) the words ‘Metal Heaven God’ 金天神 are glossed ‘Third Son, Mount Hua’ 華岳三郎: see Lionel Giles, ‘The Lament of the Lady of Ch’in’, T’oung Pao 24, 1926, p. 333. For uses of this name in Kuang-i chi, see stories 70 and 75. 63  Stories 76, 81; also Lu-i chi, by Tu Kuang-t’ing (850–933), in Tao tsang. hy 591, 4.1a–3a, and tpkc 311.2464; Tsuan-i chi 纂異記, by Li Mei 李玫 (ninth century), in tpkc 350.2773–5. On the place of Mount Hua in the hierarchy of the underworld, see Sawada, Jigokuhen, pp. 56–58. 64  Stories 75, 76. 65  Stories 69, 76; also Chi wen 紀聞, by Niu Su 牛肅 (mid-eighth century), in tpkc 303.2399; I shih 逸史, in tpkc 378.3012; ‘Yeh Ching-neng shih’ 葉靜能詩, in Tun-huang pien-wen chi hsin-shu, ed. P’an Chung-kuei, [Taipei] 1983–1984, pp. 1104–6. This theme will be examined below, pp. 1944 ff. 66  Story 70. 67   Tsuan-i chi, in tpkc 350.2774. 68   Ming-pao shih-i 冥報拾遺, by Lang Yü-ling 郎餘令 (comp. 661–663), in Fa-yüan chu-lin 72.833c–834a, and tpkc 388.3096. For authorship, see Fa-yüan chu-lin 100.1024b. This story gives an interesting account of a shamaness requiring the assistance of a scribe to take down her dictation of utterances by a dead man’s invoked spirit.

Paul W. Kroll - 978-90-04-38020-2 Downloaded from Brill.com11/15/2020 06:09:18AM via San Francisco State University

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His family had for generations invoked the god of Mount Hua, and their prayers had met with some success. K’o-ch’in’s mother now prayed to the god to grant him a son, and sure enough they produced a son … Five years later … his wife was also childless, his mother prayed again for a son, and the woman gave birth to one. But [the first son] Tsui-lien wasted away day by day. She appealed once more for the god’s help. And that night the mother saw a man with gold seal on purple cord who said to her: ‘Your son is destined to have few children. The previous son was sent by me. Now that the wife has borne another the first son is bound not to thrive. This is not within my power to help.’ He departed, merely thanking her for the offerings he had enjoyed.69 It comes as no surprise to find Mount Hua engaged to meet this most universal of social needs. But both stories lack detail. Neither describes the manner of prayer or invocation; only the first mentions prayer at the mountain itself, only the second the dream appearance of the god with his seal of imperial office. All these deficiencies are met in a rare circumstantial account of a village shamaness at work, and one which extends our knowledge of the Mount Hua cult in several directions.70 We read of a woman, Hsüeh Erh-niang 薛二娘, who claims to serve the Great Metal Heaven King 金天大王. Significantly she works far away from his temple, five hundred miles to the east in Ch’u-chou 楚州 (modern Huai-an 淮安 in Kiangsu), where she exorcizes evil spirits. Some villagers call her in to treat their daughter for demon-inspired madness: She set up an altar in a room and laid the patient within its bounds. Beside it she made a large fire pit, in which she brought an iron pot to red heat. The shamaness then performed music in full costume, inviting the god with her playing and dancing. In a moment the god descended, and all the onlookers bowed repeatedly. With libation of wine the shamaness conjured the god: ‘Summon the demon here at once!’ And with these words she stepped into the fire pit and sat down in it, quite unchanged in appearance. Some time went by. Then she rose with a flourish of her robes and played and danced, covering her head with the heated pot. At the end of the music she removed it, then sat on a folding chair and 69   t pkc 388.3094. No source is given. 70   t pkc 470.3872–3, citing an unknown source, T’ung-yu chi 通幽記. The story is translated in full, but with some inaccuracies, by de Groot, The Religious System of China, vol. 6, pp. 1227–8.

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shrieked at the patient to tie herself up. The patient put her hands behind her back, just as if tied there, and was then ordered to identify herself. At first she wept and said nothing. The shamaness in a rage laid hold of a sword to behead her: the blade sliced through with a crack, yet the body was unhurt. Then the patient said: ‘I give in!’ The girl identifies the possessing otter demon, writes out his stylish poem of farewell (though never before able to write), then falls asleep, released from her frenzy. But later she is found to be pregnant, and finally gives birth to three otters sired by the demon who possessed her. They run off to join their father in the lake. The story’s most obvious importance lies in its contribution to the history of shamanism and the exorcistic treatment of possession. But for us it also offers a single, fascinating hint at the wider reach of the Metal Heaven cult in T’ang China. This crucial example shows that even in remote provinces female shamans could invoke the Metal Heaven King as their control in exorcism and healing: they saw his divine authority as spreading, it seems, throughout the land. The god is available not merely for support of imperial interests and enlightenment of the devout elite, but for a far more catholic service to the rural population in its personal needs and crises. This should not be forgotten as we study the traditions of the relatively metropolitan cult at the Temple of the Mount. The ethnographer de Groot did not scruple to use such tales of the supernatural to reconstruct the religious behaviour of ancient and mediaeval China. And here once again, approached with a particular focus of interest, they seem to offer something like a documentary value. But they cannot be used casually and without comment. Documentary value requires critical distance and discrimination—things which come only when the stories confront the evidence of other documents, within the Chinese historical tradition or beyond it, and establish a response or a tension with them. The case of Hsüan-tsung’s roadside encounter with the god of Mount Hua was clear: flaws in chronology disqualify any claim to record actual events as they happened, yet we can adopt a style of reading which sees the story expressing public perceptions; and these respond to echoes of the same perceptions in other—and other kinds of—sources. But the stories of Chang K’o-ch’in and Hsüeh Erh-niang call for different handling. No independent historical documents verify or challenge the events they report, and we can respond only by measuring their claims against other standards of plausibility. When Chang’s mother prays to Mount Hua for offspring we recognize wider patterns—the fertility cult associated with Mount

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T’ai 泰山 in more modern times,71 the many other deities who served this need in traditional China, the same practices followed in traditional societies throughout the world—and expand our view of the cult accordingly. But when the same lady dreams of a dialogue with the god we must respond differently: the event falls in what for us is subjective territory, its narration becomes for us once more the voice of a perception. This, first of all, was one way in which such literature chose to represent communication between spirits and humans. Secondarily, it perhaps also represents the way in which the devout public expected or hoped its answers from the gods to come. Ultimately it might even reflect the felt experience of actual subjects seeking help from the gods. In this way the story reveals norms of cult behaviour; its circumstantial details, without the authority of empirical observation, enrich our sense of those norms to the extent that other documents echo them too. The shamaness Hsüeh Erh-niang finds echoes in the ethnography of traditional Chinese communities in modern times and, beyond that, in accounts of shamanistic behaviour throughout the world. Her fiery ordeals have their counterpart wherever shamans have been seen at work. And this recognition in turn opens up the story itself. With the words ‘the god descended’, informed readers will know that the presence of the god possesses the shamaness.72 When she shrieks instructions at the patient, they will understand that the voice of the controlling deity, Metal Heaven King, is confronting the demon in possession of the patient, which will identify itself and write verses before it leaves. All this can be matched in the annals of possession in human society. But when the story in due course has the pregnant girl patient give birth to three otters sired by the exorcized otter demon, who then join their welcoming father in the lake, modern readers are caught without preparation from ethnographic literature. Forced to switch to another mode of reading, we recognize once more a statement from the surrounding society of what it perceived to be happening. Under close study these stories emerge as complex documents. They need analysis and interpretation before they will yield useful social insights.

71  Chavannes, Le T’ai chan, pp. 12–13, 29 ff. 72  Compare the short chapter on female shamans in de Groot, The Religious System of China, vol. 6, pp. 1323–41; A. J. A. Elliott, Chinese Spirit-medium Cults in Singapore, London 1955, pp. 135–140; Jack M. Potter, ‘Cantonese Shamanism’, in Arthur P. Wolf, ed., Religion and Ritual in Chinese Society, Stanford 1974, pp. 207–231.

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A Vernacular Mythology

As readers we sometimes enter both the precincts of the temple and the private world of the worshippers there: 194 Wang Hsün, a metropolitan graduate from Hua-chou, once went into the Mount Hua Temple with Chao Wang-shu and some other companions. He entered the shrine of the Third Daughter and was so taken with her arch beauty that he succumbed to her baleful influence and instantly died. In panic and terror Chao called in a shamaness, brought in food and liquor and had music and dancing performed before the goddess. At long last Wang came to life, glared angrily at Chao and said: ‘I was perfectly comfortable up there! What did you make the shamaness play the lute and call me back for?’ Everyone laughed and asked him what had happened. He said: ‘To begin with the daughter hid me in her carriage. Just when we were getting on really nicely together we had Chao Wang-shu intervene with his lute music and bring the matter to the king’s attention. He ordered a eunuch to search all the maids’ carriages, and then all the daughters’. There was nothing for it: I was pushed out and fell to earth. And so I am alive again!’ This is perfect material to illustrate the simple analytical units we have called ‘inner story and outer story’. The inner story is in this case what we hear about from Wang Hsün. It represents the private and subjective experience of an individual caught up in an adventure on the other side—here a meeting with a known goddess, elsewhere a visit to the underworld, a liaison with a fox, an encounter with a demon. Such were the picturesque other-worldly scenes which must have formed the main point of interest for their original raconteurs, collectors and casual readers. But the outer story contemplates Wang Hsün through the eyes of his friends. It reveals to us that the god’s promiscuous Third Daughter 三女 has her own shrine in the temple complex. The Chinese term is tso 座, which I take in the sense of shen-tso 神座, the image of a divine being set up for worship, and here evidently enclosed in a way that permits the visitor to ‘enter’ it.73 The Third 73  A parallel may make this clear. When Hsiao Ch’en 蕭琛 (d. 531) became prefect of Wuhsing 吳興, he found the people there so committed to the cult of Hsiang Yü 項羽 that ‘they had set up couch and curtains in the prefectural audience hall as a shrine to the god (神座), and public and private prayers were made there’: see Nan shih 18.506 and

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Daughter, like the god’s lesser womenfolk, seems also to enjoy the privacy of a ‘carriage’ 車, which I take to be a litter in which their sacred images might ride in ceremonial procession. Other anecdotal sources confirm that the Mount Hua Temple housed secondary cults to members of a mythical family dependent on the king. Lu Chao 盧肇, who held an army post at nearby T’ung-kuan 潼關 in the 850s, took responsibility for setting one up: visiting the mountain, he fell asleep there and dreamed of an old lady miserably cooking a supper of acorns. She was mother to the god of the mount, but this status brought her no benefit in the world of the shades: ‘where sacrificial offerings are made we cannot partake of them unless we are called by name.’ So Lu summoned the invoker at the temple (嶽廟祝) to set up a separate tablet (位) to the mother of the god.74 We shall see below that the god’s Three Consorts had their own cult centre, too. Faced with Wang Hsün’s collapse in the shrine, his concerned friends bring in a temple shamaness. The term shen-wu 神巫 (de Groot: ‘animated wu’) shows the woman subject to possession by a spirit, perhaps some member of the Metal Heaven King’s staff who might convey the message. Like the women described above she makes ritual offerings of liquor and food, performs music and dance (鼓舞), and breaks into the spirit world by strumming the p’i-p’a 琵琶, a bass lute.75 Already in the first century ad Wang Ch’ung 王充 (27–97?) had seen shamans playing on strings as they called down souls of the dead.76 Now, in T’ang times, the p’i-p’a was the spirit-raiser’s special instrument.

Liang shu 26.397. For further reference to this Hsiang Yü cult, see below, Chapter 5, n. 19. These shrines may be compared with the ‘soul shrine’ 靈座 mentioned in story 280 and Chapter 6, p. 146. 74   Yün-ch’i yu-i, by Fan Shu ( fl. 860–873), A.18–19 (repr. Peking 1959). For Lu Chao’s own account of his career from 843 (chin-shih graduation) into the 860s, see the dedicatory memorial with his ‘Hai-ch’ao fu’ 海潮陚 in T’ang wen ts’ui 5.10a–11b. 75  Early specimens of this instrument, imported to Japan in the eighth century, remain at the Shōsōin at Nara: see Eta Harich-Schneider, A History of Japanese Music, London 1973, pp. 65–66 and pl. 8a. Related instruments were used in Heian Japan by blind Buddhist exorcists, and the ‘blind monk’s lute’ (mōsō biwa 盲僧琵琶) has remained marginally in ritual use until modern times. Like lute playing as such, the spirit medium’s profession was traditionally reserved for blind people in Japan: the blind girls known as itako also use primitive stringed instruments as part of their professional equipment. See Carmen Blacker, The Catalpa Bow, a Study of Shamanistic Practices in Japan, London 1975, pp. 147– 148. Cf. de Groot, Religious System of China, vol. 6, p. 1333. 76   Lun heng chiao-shih 20.876 (‘Lun ssu’ 論死).

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Female diviners played it as they revealed their inspired knowledge.77 One of them gave the virtuoso performer K’ang K’un-lun 康崑崙 his first lessons in the instrument.78 The poet Li Ho 李賀 (791–817) in a piece called ‘Divine strings’ described a spirit-raising séance, with libation of wine, smoking incense, paper cash, and Lover’s wood, adorned with golden dancing phoenix, Brows knit, doubling each word with a plucked note.79 Scattered literary references like these sketch out a picture of the professional mediums who served visitors at the Temple of the Mount. But the dynamic of inner and outer stories has more to give: here is our first clear view of how the temple’s divine population was perceived to interact with secular human society. The case of the Three Consorts provides a parallel view, and one that will give a background for studying the god’s own interventions in human lives. 71 During the K’ai-yüan period one Li Shih of the Chao-chün line made a pious visit to the Mount Hua Temple. As he passed through the Hall of the Three Consorts he suddenly noticed that the goddesses were all living women, inviting him in behind their jewelled curtains. There they indulged in all the pleasures of love, and the Three Consorts took turns to join him in sexual union. When they had done, he emerged, and at the moment of leave-taking they said to Li: ‘Every year, from the seventh to the twelfth day of the seventh month, the god of the mount has to render account in Heaven. When that date comes round we shall receive you. Don’t be backward! Our meeting with you this time falls on those very dates. That is why we have been able to enjoy ourselves so thoroughly!’ For seven years after this, every time the date came round,80 he would suddenly expire. His family would watch over him. It would be three days before he became conscious again, and he had this to tell: 77   Ch’ao-yeh ch’ien-tsai 3.63–4. Elsewhere, a tale of Po Hsing-chien 白行簡 (776–826) describes how a shamaness ‘burned incense, played upon her lute and called down [her spirit]’: tpkc 283.2258, from an unknown Ling-i chi 靈異記. The whole piece is translated by de Groot, The Religious System of China, vol. 6, pp. 1113–14. 78   Yüeh-fu tsa-lu, by Tuan An-chieh ( fl. 894–907), p. 51 (repr. in Chung-kuo ku-tien hsi-ch’ü lun-chu chi-ch’eng, vol. 1, Peking 1959). 79   San-chia p’ing-chu Li Ch’ang-chi ko-shih, Peking 1960, 4.151. ‘Lover’s wood’, the fine-grained wood of a southern tree, represents the lute. 80  For 悟 read 晤.

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‘Sacred curtains—mats of tortoiseshell— Silken bedding—palliasse of muslin— Waving a full-moon fan to soothe the summer heat, Trailing muslin robes to release their fill of fragrance, With cool, pure jades at their waist And scented airs weaving a riot of colour, They waited for my coming— Tiny dimples lighting up all their smiles, A charming bloom on each lovely face. We talked of our long separation, and tears flowed down; We spoke of our new delights, and love grew between us. The Three Consorts were all mine. I am nobly endowed, and they liked me all the better for that: each had her fill of love’s pleasure. When it was time to go home they all sobbed disconsolately, drawing out the hours of daylight, so sad were they to see me leave.’ Once returned to consciousness Li Shih’s body was bathed in sweat, and he did not recover for more than ten days. A ritual specialist who saw him said: ‘You have an evil emanation about you,’ and wrote him a charm. From then on, even when he met the ladies, they were not able to come near him. Two of the consorts, one named Wang and one named Tu, told him off: ‘This is really ungentlemanly! What are you wearing a charm for?’ The youngest, named Hsiao, had a specially deep sense of their old love. She stared at him, shedding tears, and warned him to say nothing of this for three years: ‘If you do, it will bring harm not just to you, but to me too.’ Li asked her about his official career. She said: ‘You are to gain the chinshih degree and finally become magistrate of a small county.’ And all this came true. The distinction between inner and outer stories imposes itself strongly here. While Li Shih enters through the Mount Hua Temple into a mythological world of erotic adventure, his family watch from the side as he suffers a total collapse for three days at a fixed point every summer. Only a ritual remedy can mediate between these two exclusive worlds. The imperial cult of Mount Hua, whose presiding god stood in the eighth century among the ranks of the highest in heaven, enfolded a collection of subordinate figures whose history remains obscure and whose influence had a strictly local and individual impact. Whether they ever stood as distinct local deities we do not know, but here they are seen as members of a Chinese family group, all responding to the same seasonal rhythm. That at least is what we learn from the date that appears in this story—the annual visit of the King to Paul W. Kroll - 978-90-04-38020-2 Downloaded from Brill.com11/15/2020 06:09:18AM via San Francisco State University

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render account in heaven on the seventh of the seventh month. Long before T’ang times this was an important date in the calendar of the Taoist church: one of the five la 臘, days on which the Five Emperors held an assembly in the celestial capital Hsüan-tu 玄都, and also one of the Three Great Festivals 三會 of the Taoist year.81 Li Shih’s story, though it stands outside the tradition of Taoist priestly literature, reveals that even society at large perceived the god of Mount Hua to play a part in these great celestial assemblies—a part patterned on the prefectural officers in China’s provincial administration who took turns to report on their duties before the throne at the annual spring assembly.82 And the consorts of Mount Hua, with their everyday Chinese surnames, would time their extramarital adventures to fit the King’s ritual absence: a fine symbol of how cults at a lower, local level, with their own typical phenomena, could nestle within the very folds of a parent cult that operated on the level of emperors and heavenly courts. Their physical accommodation in the parent temple compound, with their own hall and jewelled curtains, carries the same message. As he describes it, Li Shih’s experience belongs within that ancient tradition of erotic meetings between goddesses and men which, from early origins in ritual and mythology, entered and became sanctioned in the mainstream of Chinese poetry. The writer seems to acknowledge this by making Li Shih render his experience in gorgeous poetic language absorbed from studying the Wen hsüan. So the experience is informed by cultural tradition and articulated in a traditional language. But it is none the less interesting for that. Though the inner story by itself might claim little more than a secondary literary status, the outer story locks it quite firmly into a known social situation. About that social situation there is more to say. The pathological condition of men who fell under the erotic spell of a temple image was not, it seems, uncommon in mediaeval China. It recurs in chih-kuai literature early and late. And in an undated Taoist manual on haunting and its ritual remedies we read: The Moon Lady sprite 月娘精 has the appearance of a woman. It is lascivious and uncontrolled in sexual appetite. It often takes possession of the body of a clay image, so that when men chance to enter the temple and see a female image there, looking so upright and pure, they will fall in

81  Ch’en Kuo-fu, Tao-tsang yüan-liu k’ao, second ed., Peking 1963, pp. 317 (three festivals) and 319 (five la), Rolf A. Stein, ‘Religious Taoism and Popular Religion from the Second to Seventh Centuries’, in H. Welch and A. Seidel, eds., Facets of Taoism, New York and London 1979, pp. 69 ff. 82  See above, n. 46. The present story has shang-chi 上計. Paul W. Kroll - 978-90-04-38020-2 Downloaded from Brill.com11/15/2020 06:09:18AM via San Francisco State University

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love with it. The creature that then, when evening falls, comes to sleep with the men and seduce them is a changed form of the demon attached to the clay image.83 The bewitching of Li Shih in some ways resembles this. Although its aetiology is differently presented, the remedy applied to cure it—charms written by a hired ritual specialist—reflects techniques like those elaborated later in the Taoist work. We could make almost exactly the same point about Wang Hsün’s collapse above, though his ritual treatment took a different form. Tai Fu’s book in general opens to our view a world of quite complex relationships between mortal men and spirit women, a subject explored below in Chapter 7. But here we are ready to ask more particular questions about the wives of Mount Hua. Where did these ladies with such conventional surnames come from? How did the god acquire them? Once again the Kuang-i chi leads us into a mythology which suggests historical answers. The story which follows is chosen for its richness and complexity: it will represent a larger literature based on the theme of stolen wives. 76 Ch’iu Chia-fu was from Fu-p’ing in the Metropolitan prefecture: his home was in Pu-t’ai village. He set out for Lo-yang to be presented for the degree examination. As he left the capital he met a young man who looked like a prince and was lavishly provided with furs and horses, servants and followers. The man seemed very pleased to see Ch’iu and asked him where he was bound. Ch’iu told him he was off to take an examination in the Eastern Capital. The man said: ‘I am going east too, and would like it if you came along with me!’ Ch’iu asked his name. He said it was Pai 白. But Ch’iu privately recalled that there was no nobleman at court called Pai, and felt some doubts about him. After a day the man said to Ch’iu: ‘Your donkey is not strong enough to keep up with me.’ And Ch’iu was then borne along in a carriage at the rear. Several days later they came to the Mount Hua Temple, and the man told Ch’iu: ‘I am not an ordinary human. The Monarch of Heaven has sent me to arraign spirits throughout the world. I must go into the temple now to hold an enquiry. It is your destiny to share a friendship with me. Since

83   T’ai-ch’ing chin-ch’üeh yü-hua hsien-shu pa-chi shen-chang san-huang nei-pi wen, in Tao tsang: hy 854, A.17b. Dr Judith M. Boltz drew my attention to this interesting text.

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this is already so, can you go into the temple? When my business is done we shall make our way together to the Eastern Capital.’ Ch’iu had no choice but to follow him in through the gates of the temple. And he saw a blue-green canopy, like lowering clouds. All was laid out in full display, and in front [of the hall] there were benches. The nobleman took his seat at the desk, making Ch’iu sit in a bamboo backed chair.84 The call then went up for the god of the mount. The god came, prostrating himself, to be berated several times over by the nobleman, who then ordered attendants to drag him out. All the gods of Kuan-chung province were summoned for roll-call and inspection. At the very end came the turn of the god of K’un-ming Pool, who was called up to the dais for a private word. Ch’iu Chia-fu was asked to move a little distance away and not be present at this discussion. He went out into the tented enclosure at the rear of the hall and there heard sounds of pain and distress outside the tent. Pulling open the door he saw his own wife strung up by the hair from a tree in the courtyard. He gathered that she must have died, and grew sick at heart and deadly pale. Quite soon the nobleman called him back, saw that Ch’iu looked bad and asked him why. Ch’iu told him the full truth. The man made him have another careful look, and when Ch’iu returned saying it was quite true the nobleman in great alarm said: ‘Your wife is to me like my own wife: of course I must look after her!’ And he issued a summons for the god of the mount. The god came, and was asked why he had taken the wife of Ch’iu Chia-fu of Pu-t’ai village and had her tortured. The god knew nothing at all about it. But a man in a blue robe calling himself a judge spoke up 84  This is one of the earliest references in Chinese literature to the frame chair 倚床. (A similar reference appears in story 267.) It is clear that by the ninth century the backed chair known as i-tzu 掎子 (later 椅) was established in polite use, but for the eighth century literary references are harder to find. A reference appears on the reverse of a stone inscription from 797, ‘Chi-tu miao Pei-hai t’an chi-ch’i pei’ 濟瀆廟北海壇祭器碑 see Chin-shih ts’ui-pien 103.42a. For the ninth century there are several references by the pilgrim Ennin: see Ono, Nittō guhō junrei gyōki no kenkyū, vol. 1, pp. 275 (n., pp. 276–278) and 504; vol. 4, p. 104 (and cf. Reischauer, Ennin’s Diary, pp. 52, 111, 353); see also Donald Holzman, ‘A propos de l’origine de la chaise en Chine’, T’oung Pao 53, 1967, 289–90. Holzman also refers to the obscure Wang Fan-chih 王梵志 from an earlier period (Tun-huang MS. P-2718), but here mistakes the use of the character 椅, which in the context does not mean ‘chair’: see Chang Hsi-hou, ed., Wang Fan-chih shih chiao-chi, Peking 1983, 4.114; and Hsiang Ch’u, ed., Wang Fan-chih shih chiao-chu, Shanghai 1991, 4.473–4. C. P. FitzGerald, Barbarian Beds, the Origin of the Chair in China, London 1965, offers no literary evidence for the T’ang.

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from behind on his behalf: ‘This was done on orders from authorities in Heaven. The report is now being written up for delivery.’ The nobleman ordered the dossier to be brought to him and commanded his attendants to place seal and stamp upon it and, when they came before the Monarch of Heaven, to hold it out and bring the matter to the monarch’s attention themselves. Then, turning to the god of the mount, he told him to let the wife go home. To Ch’iu Chia-fu he said: ‘You were planning to go to the Eastern Capital, but that is no longer possible now. You should go quickly back to Fu-p’ing’—he worked out the length of the journey on his fingers—‘but you would not arrive for four days and might well be too late, so I shall lend you some good horses. If you ever think of me in the future, burn some incense in a purified chamber, and I shall always come.’ After these words Ch’iu took his leave and departed. The divine servants had whipped up horses for him which appeared as he came out of the temple gates. Ch’iu mounted and made his way home. His family broke suddenly into bitter weeping. Ch’iu Chia-fu went straight in, removed his wife’s veil and watched for her breathing. In a short while she came to life. There was general rejoicing in the family, and the village elders congratulated them with jugs of wine. This went on for several days. Four or five days later Ch’iu’s body, riding the donkey, returned in company with his slave. His family could not distinguish one Ch’iu from the other until the one inside came out, the one outside went in, they met and fused together. Then everyone knew that the first to return had been his soul. A year or so later Ch’iu Chia-fu set out once again to be presented for examination in the Eastern Capital. As he came up to the Mount Hua Temple it happened that one Ts’ui, of the Law Bureau in Teng-chou, had suddenly lost his wife. The sound of his mourning was so plaintive that Ch’iu deeply pitied him and went across in person to present his compliments. He told Ts’ui to stop weeping and promised to take care of things for him. Ts’ui was delighted. Ch’iu Chia-fu burned incense in a purified chamber and turned his mind to the nobleman. Before long the nobleman appeared and, when they had enjoyed their moment of reunion, asked him what the matter was. [Then he said:] ‘This was done by the god of the mount. She can indeed be kept among the living. And we shall obtain 200 strings of cash for you. Ask for the cash first, then take action.’

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He proceeded to write out nine charms, saying: ‘First burn three, and if she fails to recover burn six more. She will then return!’ With these words he flew away. Ch’iu Chia-fu told Ts’ui what the god had said. Ts’ui, not daring to do otherwise, first burned three of the charms. By evening she had still not recovered, so he burned the rest. And very soon she came to life. Ts’ui asked his wife [about the experience. She said:] ‘When we first went into the inn I suddenly saw a carriage of mica at the foot of the steps, with hundreds of tough soldiers, all bearing arms, formed up on either side. Word came that an emissary from the king was on his way to meet me, and suddenly I was going away with him. The king was delighted to see me. He was just about to make love when three men suddenly arrived. They said that the Grand Prime demanded to know why he had abducted a living man’s wife. The god, in fear and panic, held out an official paper and said that heaven had matched me with him as his own wife—it was not a forced abduction; he therefore refused to send me back. A little while later five or six great spirits came into the king’s courtyard wielding golden staves. All the staff ran off in fright, leaving just the spirits standing there under the tree, asking to have my life spared. Then the king had me led back here.’ It was only after this that Ch’iu Chia-fu knew that his nobleman was the Grand Prime. Thereafter the god would always come whenever Ch’iu turned his thoughts to him. It was very much due to the god’s efforts that Ch’iu secured a succession of five or six prefectural appointments. The reference to degree examinations held in the Eastern Capital Lo-yang gives this narrative a focus in historical time: they were set up in 764–765 and stopped in 776 or 777,85 well within the Kuang-i cht time-scale. Internally, the story falls into a number of distinct episodes, some of which have parallels elsewhere. Let us begin with the personal drama of the man who finds his wife’s soul suffering the torments of the newly dead in the Mount Hua Temple. Point for point this matches story 79. Speed is essential in both. It is clear that husband and wife are present at the temple in different forms: she as a soul newly separated from her corruptible body, he as a man whose soul will now hurry back home in advance of his slower-travelling body. Both will recover their 85  Robert des Rotours, Le traité des examens, traduit de la Nouvelle histoire des T’ang (chap. LXIV, LXV ), Paris 1932, pp. 176–177 (n.), discussing hts 44.1165; Ts’e-fu yüan-kuei 640.11ab; T’ang chih-yen 1.9; T’ang hui-yao 75.1368; cts 11.276 and 190B.5031.

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living integrity at home: she as a reviving corpse, he as a delayed fusion of body and soul. In all this the god of Mount Hua plays an ambiguous role. Here, as often in T’ang literature, he wields official power over the human dead, though subject to higher authority. But in the episode with Ts’ui’s wife that follows next he also feels free to take personal possession of a married woman who passes his way. Challenged to account for his act, he claims the pretext of legitimate union with the woman. This, then, would be a likely background to the Three Consorts 三夫人, with their subordinate shrine in the Mount Hua Temple complex: they were perceived to be women from the mortal world who fell by chance under the mountain’s power.86 Perhaps certain real women shared with Ts’ui’s wife the experience of hysterical collapse in or near the temple, countered for some by ritual treatment followed by nightmare memories of the ghostly establishment inside. And possibly even the named Three Consorts themselves might be identified with once living women who had succumbed in this fashion when passing the temple. Variant forms of the last episode—the tale of the stolen wife—recur in the Kuang-i chi and elsewhere in T’ang literature.87 These stories possess many common features—abduction of a minor official’s wife, with her simultaneous collapse and death in the mortal world; preparation for her union with a divine figure on a sacred peak; timely intervention of ritual discipline through charms or intercession provided by an obliging specialist; ultimate revival of the wife. In all but one case the god of Mount Hua is the abductor, and in all but two T’ai-i 太一, the Grand Prime, is the source of divine discipline. In four cases the episode takes place at the Mount Hua Temple, and in two the ritual specialist is Hsüan-tsung’s Taoist adviser Yeh Ching-neng 葉靜能.88 Just one 86  This is explicit in the Tun-huang MS. S-6836, where the god of the mount claims legitimate union with a woman he needs to become his Third Consort. See P’an Chung-kuei, ed., Tun-huang pien-wen chi hsin-shu, p. 1104. Story 75 describes wedding preparations for the god’s Third Bride. But we should note that in story 70 his Third Bride is identified as a daughter of the dragons of the Northern Ocean. 87  Cf. stories 68 and 69; also tpkc 303.2399 (Chi wen) and 378.3012 (I shih); Tun-huang pienwen chi hsin-shu, pp. 1104–6 (S-6836). See Ch’ien Chung-shu, Kuan-chui pien, p. 796, who also draws attention to tpkc 352.2787–8 (Chü-t’an lu), a related version, but different in many details. A comparable ‘stolen wife’ episode is presented from the heavenly authority’s point of view in the twelfth-century Taoist scripture Tzu-t’ung ti-chün huashu 2.10b–11a, translated and discussed by Terry Kleeman, A God’s Own Tale: the Book of Transformations of Wenchang, the Divine Lord of Zitong, Albany 1994, pp. 164–165. 88   t pkc 378.3012; Tun-huang pien-wen chi hsin-shu, pp. 1104–6. For Yeh Ching-neng see also stories 72 and 198.

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case involves Buddhist powers. Nearly all forms of the story show talismanic charms at work, and the women’s dreamlike memories express clearly for us just how the public perceived them to work: each one, when burned, summons a spirit to perform an assigned task with high heavenly authority. The standing of T’ai-i as agent of heaven needs some historical comment. Through Chinese history this archaic title had variously stood for primordial cosmic principle, for legendary object of worship by ancient kings, for supreme god of the universe (in the state cult promulgated by Han Wu-ti), for god of the North Star or god of the planet Jupiter. By T’ang times T’ai-i was a star god occupying one of the heavenly Nine Mansions 九宮.89 The diviners and astrologers who practised this branch of learning offered many, sometimes contradictory, systems of theology. But the T’ang court in the ninth century endorsed a formulation which illuminates the figure we meet here in story 76, in particular his mysterious surname White (Pai 白): First mansion: the god is T’ai-i 太一, the star is T’ien-p’eng 天蓬, the trigram is k’an 坎, the element is water, the directional colour is white.90 In 744–745 Hsüan-tsung had set up altars for seasonal sacrifice to the gods of the Nine Mansions, with T’ai-i at their head. These altars stood half a mile outside the Ch’un-ming Gate 春明門, on the north side of the government road running east from the capital. Their rites were secondary only to those of the Supreme Monarch of Heaven.91 But in 758, under Su-tsung, T’ai-i gained a special sacrificial altar east of the main Altar of Heaven, which in turn stood south of the city.92 His high place in the imperially constructed heaven of the mideighth century is clear enough. But in this story we see his corresponding place in the functional heaven known to lay society: serving as direct lieutenant to the Monarch of Heaven 天帝, he here sets out on a mission from his base just outside Ch’ang-an. That now brings us to the opening sequence of this story, which raises the interesting question of territory and jurisdiction. Ch’iu Chia-fu meets his divine companion on the road that will lead them past the Mount Hua Temple towards Lo-yang. The sequence echoes, but antithetically, the same opening

89  All these functions are critically examined in Ch’ien Pao-tsung, ‘T’ai-i k’ao’, Yen-ching hsüeh-pao 12, 1932, 2449–78. 90   c ts 24.932. 91   c ts 24.929; Ta-T’ang chiao-ssu lu 6.1a–4a. Cf. Chapter 3, n. 6. 92   c ts 10.252; tctc 220.7056.

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in story 81, where a candidate leaves Lo-yang for an examination in Ch’ang-an: road and mission are the same, but their direction reversed. In story 81 the noble young traveller turns out to be a son of the god of Mount Hua; here he is the arm of divine discipline falling upon that god from above. The scenes which follow in each case are again similar but antithetical—all courtroom sessions with judge presiding and prisoners arraigned, though there the god of the mount sits in judgement, while here he kneels as prisoner. Either way the temple’s territorial importance is clear. In this story its otherworldly jurisdiction expressly covers the province ‘Within the Pass’ (Kuan-nei 關內), including the metropolis itself: hence the presence of the god of K’un-ming Pool 昆明池, an artificial lake to the west of Ch’ang-an.93 Like Ch’iu Chia-fu’s home in Fup’ing it was under the Metropolitan prefecture. From other stories we know that Mount Hua’s powers did not extend eastward beyond the strategic barrier defined by the T’ung Pass 潼關, where a form of border-post seems to have been in place in the spirit world.94 In story 70 the god lies there in ambush with five hundred men, hoping to intercept an imperial guardsman before he can move to safety beyond the pass—a feat which the guardsman achieves by travelling in the emperor’s drum-carriage (‘spirits most dread the drum’).95 And when in story 68 the wife of Administrator Lu recovers from her collapse in the Eastern Capital Lo-yang, she reports being abducted, not by Mount Hua, but by the Third Son of Mount T’ai: so beyond the T’ung Pass jurisdiction and territorial control clearly lie in other hands. According to this anecdotal mythology the most immediate danger to women lies in the precincts of the parent temple, where four of the Mount Hua stories take place. One of them even ends with the comment: ‘From this they knew that spirit temples should not be entered by women.’96 But in story 69 an abduction by Mount Hua interestingly takes place in Ho-tung 河東 (now Yungchi 永濟) county, in the extreme south-west corner of modern Shansi province. This place, though not physically distant from the Mount Hua Temple, actually lay on the far side of the Yellow River, which throughout Chinese history has

93  First built by the Han emperor Wu-ti in 120 bc, it had been dry since the end of the fourth century and was soon to be restored in 797: Han shu 6.177, 24B.1165; Ch’ang-an chih (preface 1076), 6.6a; T’ang liang-ching ch’eng-fang k’ao 2.1b; San-fu huang-t’u 4.3a–4b. 94  Compare story 108, in which the ghost of a man’s wife hoping to pass through is held up for some days by the spirits’ border control at T’ung-kuan. She passes this barrier only by joining her husband’s living cousin as he travels through to take the examination. 95  Story 70. (Delete 車, with Sun Ch’ien.). 96   t pkc 378.3012 (I shih).

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defined a boundary here in human geography. But it seems that the physical barrier of the river was perceived to deter the predatory god of Mount Hua less than the bureaucratic controls defining his territory at T’ung Pass.97 This talk of territory, boundaries and jurisdiction leads conveniently to our summing up. The discussion has grown out of an anecdotal literature characterized here as ‘a vernacular mythology’ of Mount Hua. That term describes, not the language of the various notebook entries, but rather their status vis-àvis an official mythology ordained by the imperial state and publicly enshrined in works of formal literature. By contrast the informal notebooks collect reports of experiences perceived by a wider society, reflecting different constraints and betraying seriously different ritual practices. We have noted how the reports echo and duplicate one another, showing formulaic characteristics we would elsewhere associate with folklore. There is no point in trying to pin down this literature of hearsay as, in whatever sense, a body of empirical documentation. Any underlying pattern of actual human or social experience— collapses, exorcisms, visions, canonizations—can only remain a matter for inference and hypothesis. More safely attested is the infrastructure of the spirit world implied throughout this group of stories. It enables us to see the T’ang cult of Mount Hua in a perspective of some complexity. The subject of this cult, an image in a large, ancient temple compound at the foot of a great mountain, exerted his influence on the life of China at several different levels. The temple walls enclosed a shared ritual space in which distinct forms of cult activity went on in parallel, but independently. To some extent we can separate them out. The imperial cult offered alcohol and sacrificial animals at prescribed seasons of the year. But one emperor actually found a personal patron in the mountain that presided at his birth. Individual scholars brought their own sacrifices before the god and sought personal messages from him. Some prayed for sons. Many paid shamanesses to accept the divine presence into their own bodies. Others worshipped and entered into imagined relations with the god’s womenfolk. All this activity took place in the temple precincts. But the god’s influence was believed, and perhaps felt, to extend throughout the region around the capital Ch’ang-an, arraigning the dead and preying upon the living in the fertile plain of the River Wei, where the empire’s main communication artery ran. Yet even the compact, internally consistent vernacular mythology which reveals the god’s menacing presence in those lands ‘within the pass’ fails to give the full picture. An awkward, ragged end is left by the story of Hsüeh Erh-niang, 97  For an example of spirit territory defined by a point on the Yellow River, see story 73, discussed below in Chapter 5, with n. 58.

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the village exorcist who served him in Ch’u-chou, hundreds of miles outside his home territory. Although that single document offers no more than a hint of further complexities, it does stand clearly outside the tidy systems presented in other sources, formal and informal. Here is one more reminder of the vast, slow-moving and barely visible mass of rural shamanistic practice flowing through Chinese history. It brings a warning that the written record takes us only part of the way in understanding past and present society: outside its narrow bounds runs a different writ.

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Index of Personal Names Premodern individuals mentioned in the main text are indexed, with Chinese names arranged alphabetically by Pinyin romanization; if different, Wade-Giles romanization follows in parenthesis. Traditional and oft-­ referred to figures such as Confucius, Mencius, Zhuangzi (Chuang-tzu), and familiar figures such as Yao, Shun, and Yu (Yü), etc., are not included. Amoghavajra 1547, 1771 An Jiatuo (An Chia-t’o) 1792 An Lushan (An Lu-shan) 67, 91, 165, 169, 170, 201, 461, 464, 468–71, 475, 480, 484, 525, 527, 528, 533, 713, 714, 754, 827, 832, 839, 894, 908, 962, 1045, 1060, 1071, 1094, 1129, 1133, 1159, 1360, 1362, 1389, 1408–13, 1420, 1470, 1471, 1481, 1595, 1772–73, 1838 An Qingxu (An Ch’ing-hsü) 165, 528, 529–30, 534, 536 Anle (An-lo), Tang princess 63–64, 89, 1001, 1003, 1004, 1175, 1177, 1182, 1183, 1185, 1186, 1198 Annen 1712 Ashina Huseluo (A-shih-na Hu-se-lo) 437 Ashina She’er (A-shih-na She-erh) 523 Bai Juyi (Pai Chü-i), see Bo Juyi Bai Lüzhong (Pai Lü-chung), see Bo Lüzhong Ban Gu (Pan Ku) 556, 587, 785, 787, 790, 791, 945, 949, 1080, 1209, 1443, 1485 Bao Fang (Pao Fang) 262, 1109–10 Bao Rong (Pao Jung) 1109–10, 1117 Bao Zhao (Pao Chao) 601, 618, 663, 684, 988, 1034, 1035 Baozhi (Pao-chih) 1757 Bi Qiantai (Pi Ch’ien-t’ai) 1175, 1176 Bian Lingcheng (Pien Ling-ch’eng) 487, 492 Bo Juyi (Po Chü-i) 343, 458, 460, 482, 546, 558, 756, 860, 861, 905, 924, 926, 1106, 1121, 1127–28, 1133–34, 1139–40, 1142, 1143–45, 1146–47, 1148–51, 1155–56, 1158, 1162, 1164, 1169–70, 1205, 1235–65, 1270–72, 1276, 1280, 1282, 1287, 1294,

1310, 1312, 1314, 1315–16, 1318–19, 1321, 1322, 1354, 1355, 1358, 1361, 1364, 1365, 1367, 1368, 1370–71, 1378, 1418, 1432–34, 1565–68 Bo Lüzhong (Po Lü-chung) Bo Yi (Po I) 135, 136 Buddhabhadra 1629 Buddhapāli 1683–85 Cai Xizong (Ts’ai Hsi-tsung) 1547, 1552 Cai Yong (Ts’ai Yung) 775–77 Cai Yuanding (Ts’ai Yüan-ting) 1224 Cao Jie (Ts’ao Chieh) 538 Cao Pi (Ts’ao P’i) 583, 1290, 1492, 1544 Cao Shuang (Ts’ao Shuang) 680 Cao Xian (Ts’ao Hsien), 8th-c. official 487 Cao Xian (Ts’ao Hsien), 7th-c. scholar 639 Cao Zhi (Ts’ao Chih) 601, 617, 862, 955, 998, 999, 1089, 1290, 1492 Cen Shen (Ts’en Shen) 591, 728, 832, 834, 842, 900, 971, 983, 984, 985, 1068, 1142 Cen Wenben (Ts’en Wen-pen) 378, 550 Cen Xi (Ts’en Hsi) 1172, 1176, 1182, 1183, 1187, 1189 Chang Jian (Ch’ang Chien) 971, 974, 975, 978, 981, 983 Changjue (Ch’ang-chüeh) 1607 Changning (Ch’ang-ning), Tang princess 89, 1001, 1002, 1003, 1004, 1013, 1016–17, 1020, 1175, 1184, 1186, 1190, 1191, 1198 Changqing (Ch’ang-ch’ing), Tang princess  476 Chao Gongwu (Ch’ao Kung-wu) 1374 Chen An (Ch’en An) 1926–27 Chen Baoguang (Ch’en Pao-kuang) 1882 Chen Bozhi (Ch’en Po-chih) 1636 Chen Fangqing (Ch’en Fang-ch’ing) 667 Chen Hong (Ch’en Hung) 458 Chen Houzhu (Ch’en Hou-chu) 1636 Chen Huiming (Ch’en Hui-ming) 1728 Chen Jian (Ch’en Chien) 188 Chen Jing (Ch’en Ching) 756 Chen Lin (Ch’en Lin) 675 Chen Ping (Ch’en P’ing) 1587 Chen Qizu (Ch’en Ch’i-tsu) 1632

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1950 Chen Shidao (Ch’en Shih-tao) 904 Chen Shubao (Ch’en Shu-pao), see Chen Houzhu Chen Shuda (Ch’en Shu-ta) 13 Chen Wangdao (Ch’en Wang-tao), see Zhiyi Chen Wendi (Ch’en Wen-ti) 1636 Chen Xilie (Ch’en Hsi-lieh) 128 Chen Xuandi (Ch’en Hsüan-ti) 1588, 1634, 1636 Chen Xuanli (Ch’en Hsüan-li) 475, 480, 487–88, 499, 500–01 Chen Yaxian (Ch’en Ya-hsien) 1717 Chen Yue (Ch’en Yüeh) 153 Chen Ziang (Ch’en Tzu-ang) 430, 437, 546, 557, 666–93, 959, 1090, 1159 Chen Zilong (Ch’en Tzu-lung) 932 Cheng Changyi (Ch’eng Ch’ang-i) 475, 479 Cheng Dachang (Ch’eng Ta-ch’ang) 488 Cheng Jingqi (Ch’eng Ching-ch’i) 1731 Cheng Tingyuan (Ch’eng T’ing-yüan) 1437, 1439 Cheng Yuanzhen (Ch’eng Yüan-chen) 67, 540 Chengguan (Ch’eng-kuan) 1661 Chongyuan (Ch’ung-yüan) 1753–54 Chu Guangxi (Ch’u Kuang-hsi) 957, 973, 975, 979, 983, 1000 Chu Renhuo (Ch’u Jen-huo) 1474 Chu Suiliang (Ch’u Sui-liang) 30, 1542, 1546, 1547, 1549–52 Chunyu Fen (Ch’un-yü Fen) 1327 Ci’en (Tz’u-en) 1630, 1653 Cozy Damzel, see Yingniang Cui Chun (Ts’ui Ch’un) 185 Cui Guangyuan (Ts’ui Kuang-yüan) 486, 492 Cui Guofu (Ts’ui Kuo-fu) 983 Cui Hao (Ts’ui Hao) 552, 564, 975, 983, 985 Cui Hong (Ts’ui Hung) 493 Cui Lizhi (Ts’ui Li-chih) 1312, 1319–20 Cui Mingan (Ts’ui Min-kan) 379–80 Cui Qun (Ts’ui Ch’ün) 1224, 1313, 1316–17, 1321 Cui Riyong (Ts’ui Jih-yung) 1173, 1176, 1178, 1179, 1183, 1186, 1187, 1188, 1189, 1192, 1197, 1199 Cui Shanwei (Ts’ui Shan-wei) 26

Index of Personal Names Cui Shi (Ts’ui Shih) 1172, 1177, 1184, 1185, 1186, 1187, 1189, 1191, 1198 Cui Shu (Ts’ui Shu) 768, 983 Cui Xian (Ts’ui Hsien) 556 Cui Xiang (Ts’ui Hsiang) 476 Cui Xinming (Ts’ui Hsin-ming) 554, 562, 565 Cui Xuanliang (Ts’ui Hsüan-liang) 1246 Cui Xuanwei (Ts’ui Hsüan-wei) 452 Cui Xunyi (Ts’ui Hsün-i) 511 Cui Yong (Ts’ui Yung) 1438 Cui Youfu (Ts’ui Yu-fu) 154–55, 183–84 Cui Yuanhan (Ts’ui Yüan-han) 186 Cui Zao (Ts’ui Tsao) 172 Da Shuqing (Ta Shu-ch’ing) 512 Daxi Wu (Ta-hsi Wu) 1918 Dayi (Ta-i) 1595 Dai Fu (Tai Fu) 1935, 1937–38, 1940–43 Daizong (Tai-tsung), Tang emperor 67, 82, 137, 148, 169, 253, 261, 476, 1596, 1741 Dan Yi (Tan I) 178 Dan Zhu (Tan Chu) 146–47, 150, 177, 179, 180, 181, 199, 210 Daobiao (Tao-piao) 1594 Daocheng (Tao-ch’eng) 1587 Daochuo (Tao-ch’o) 1631 Daojun (Tao-chün) 1180 Daosheng (Tao-sheng) 1650 Daoxin (Tao-hsin) 1751 Daoxuan (Tao-hsüan) 1625, 1628, 1651, 1802 Daozong (Tao-tsung) 1250 Devendraprajña 1682 Dezong (Te-tsung), Tang emperor 68, 73, 82, 138, 139, 147, 154, 163, 168, 183, 200, 201, 203, 208, 262, 279, 532, 540–41, 1426, 1512 Dharmapāla 1648–49 Di Renjie (Ti Jen-chieh) 408, 417, 421, 434–35, 436–37, 441, 443, 444, 449, 1695 Divākara 1655, 1684 Diwu Qi (Ti-wu Ch’i) 168 Dong Jin (Tung Chin) 1214, 1218, 1221 Dong Qichang (Tung Ch’i-ch’ang) 1552 Dong Zhongshu (Tung Chung-shu) 1074, 1088, 1208 Dongfang Qiu (Tung-fang Ch’iu) 668, 671–72, 673, 674, 683, 685

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Index of Personal Names Dongfang Shuo (Tung-fang Shuo) 1198 Dou (Tou), Tang empress 1422 Dou Congyi (Tou Ts’ung-i) 1175, 1186 Dou Ji (Tou Chi) 1550–51 Dou Wei (Tou Wei) 13 Dou Xian (Tou Hsien) 958 Dou Xijie (Tou Hsi-chieh) 1175, 1183, 1190, 1191 Du Fu (Tu Fu) 135, 171, 546, 581–83, 587, 694, 695, 696, 713, 715, 825–93, 894–935, 960, 966, 970, 1018, 1019, 1073, 1105, 1108, 1112, 1121, 1123, 1136, 1145, 1159, 1166, 1238, 1265, 1271, 1273, 1360, 1473, 1508, 1510, 1521, 1856 Du Mu (Tu Mu) 162, 588, 1112, 1134–35, 1160, 1206, 1237, 1238, 1239, 1473 Du Que (Tu Ch’üeh) 1142 Du Ruhui (Tu Ju-hui) 1547 Du Shenyan (Tu Shen-yen) 675, 693, 827, 961, 1010–13, 1018, 1172, 1176 Du Wei (Tu Wei) 978 Du Ya (Tu Ya) 154 Du You (Tu Yu) 147, 149, 150, 156, 169, 190–91, 193–202, 206–8, 212, 343 Du Yousui (Tu Yu-sui) 1610 Du Yu (Tu Yü) 110, 115, 118 Du Yuantan (Tu Yüan-t’an) 1181 Duan Chengshi (Tuan Ch’eng-shih) 1108, 1508, 1521, 1524–38 Duan Wei (Tuan Wei) 1613, 1614 Dugu Ji (Tu-ku Chi) 155–56, 174–75, 176–77, 183, 185, 540, 1061–66, 1070–71, 1073–74, 1077, 1079, 1081–83, 1087–93, 1136 Dugu Mian (Tu-ku Mien) 262 Dugu Ming (Tu-ku Ming) 478 Ennin 1562, 1712 Eun 1712 Facai (Fa-ts’ai) 1720, 1725, 1726 Fahai (Fa-hai) 1715–19 Falang (Fa-lang) 1586 Faru (Fa-ju) 1747 Fashun (Fa-shun) 1629, 1658 Faxu (Fa-hsü) 1632 Fazang (Fa-tsang) 1628, 1629, 1641, 1646, 1657, 1658–60, 1703, 1708 Fan Chen (Fan Ch’en) 1175, 1176

1951 Fan Chuanzheng (Fan Ch’uan-cheng) 715, 717, 1138 Fan Huang 860, 1105 Fan Ning 115 Fan Yun (Fan Yün) 675 Fan Zhuanzheng (Fan Chuan-cheng), see Fan Chuanzheng Fan Zuyu (Fan Tsu-yü) 1363 Fang Guan (Fang Kuan) 192–93, 841, 1070, 1073, 1460–61, 1733 Fang Xuanling (Fang Hsüan-ling) 31, 108, 358, 1547, 1651 Fangbian (Fang-pien) 1739 Fanggan (Fang-kan) 1152 Fei Changfang (Fei Ch’ang-fang) 1865 Feng Ang 33 Feng Shaozheng (Feng Shao-cheng) 1510 Feng Su 256, 1313 Feng Yan (Feng Yen) 142, 264 Fu Jiamo (Fu Chia-mo) 552, 559, 983 Fu Jian (Fu Chien) 362 Fu Xian (Fu Hsien) 663 Fu Yi (Fu I) 1801–2 Fu Yue (Fu Yüeh) 1212–13 Fu Zhao (Fu Chao) 182 Gai Huan (Kai Huan) 1857–59 Gan Bao (Kan Pao) 1089 Gao Junya (Kao Chün-ya) 23, 25, 35, 38 Gao Lishi (Kao Li-shih) 462, 466, 475, 478, 480, 492, 493, 494, 500–01, 516, 1370, 1371, 1388, 1416–17, 1450–51, 1455 Gao Qingzi (Kao Ch’ing-tzu) 1610 Gao Rugui (Kao Ju-kuei) 1857, 1860, 1864–66 Gao Shi (Kao Shih) 134–35, 830, 831, 832, 900, 929, 971, 975, 981, 985, 1068, 1098 Gao Shilian (Kao Shih-lien) 358, 378, 1547 Gao Xiaoji (Kao Hsiao-chi) 562 Gao Yanxiu (Kao Yen-hsiu) 1445 Gao Ying (Kao Ying) 139, 187 Gao Zhengchen (Kao Cheng-ch’en) 690 Gao Zhongwu (Kao Chung-wu) 959 Gaozong (Kao-tsung), Tang emperor 46, 60, 61–62, 75, 76, 94, 108, 123, 247, 248, 260, 286, 384, 389–90, 392, 394–96, 415, 435, 546, 550, 557, 599, 654, 734, 765, 1010,

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1952 Gaozong (Kao-tsung), Tang emperor (cont.) 1445, 1512, 1623, 1624, 1647, 1652, 1653, 1656, 1658, 1668, 163–74, 1729, 1744, 1907 Gaozu (Kao-tsu), Tang emperor 13–16, 17, 21–40, 45, 58–59, 73, 74, 122, 242, 245, 248, 286, 301, 350, 377, 546, 548, 550, 639, 1192, 1439, 1548, 1622–23, 1777–78, 1790, 1793–1804 Ge Hong (Ko Hung) 781, 831, 1848, 1877, 1891, 1901–2 Geshu Han (Ko-shu Han) 484, 498, 526, 536 Gongdi (Kung-ti), Sui emperor 13 Gongsun Daniang (Kung-sun Ta-niang)  1406–7 Gu Kuang (Ku K’uang) 587, 1093 Gu Shaolian (Ku Shao-lien) 139, 187 Gu Tao (Ku T’ao) 1102, 1160–62, 1166 Gu Yanwu (Ku Yen-wu) 902 Gu Yi (Ku I) 552 Guan Lu (Kuan Lu) 680 Guan Zhong (Kuan Chung) 156 Guanding (Kuan-ting) 1629, 1638, 1639, 1646 Guanxiu (Kuan-hsiu) 1135, 1139, 1145–46, 1159, 1166, 1168 Guangning (Kuang-ning), Tang princess  479 Guangping (Kuang-p’ing), Tang princess  475 Guangyi (Kuang-i) 1588 Gunabhadra 1716, 1720, 1735 Guo Congjin (Kuo Ts’ung-chin) 496 Guo Pu (Kuo P’u) 859, 1854 Guo Qianhui (Kuo Ch’ien-hui) 1510 Guo Shanyun (Kuo Shan-yün) 1181 Guo Xiang (Kuo Hsiang) 1859 Guo Yuanzhen (Kuo Yüan-chen) 430, 440 Guo Zhengyi (Kuo Cheng-i) 553, 558 Guo Ziyi (Kuo Tzu-i) 164, 526, 536, 537, 540 Guoguo furen (Kuo-kuo fu-jen) 467, 472, 473, 474, 476, 477, 479–80, 481, 486, 501–2, 1370, 1394–95, 1397 Han Chaozong (Han Ch’ao-tsung) 737–41 Han Gaozu (Han Kao-tsu) 357, 370, 374 Han Guangwudi (Han Kuang-wu-ti) 1875 Han Huang 143, 144 Han Hui 144, 172–73, 175, 183, 1209–10 Han Ji (Han Chi) 1110

Index of Personal Names Han Jian (Han Chien) 561 Han Kangbo (Han K’ang-po) 109 Han Laocheng (Han Lao-ch’eng) 1227 Han Tai (Han T’ai) 149, 150, 188 Han Wo 1108 Han Wudi (Han Wu-ti) 331, 771, 835, 918, 1487, 1506, 1842, 1845, 1916, 1919, 1945 Han Xiu (Han Hsiu) 1075 Han Xuandi (Han Hsüan-ti) 1916 Han Ye (Han Yeh) 149, 150, 188 Han Yu (Han Yü) 156, 157, 158, 159–61, 163, 164, 172, 174, 183, 186, 190, 197, 202, 207–11, 362, 546, 751–52, 860, 861, 903, 905, 1073, 1102, 1106, 1116, 1120, 1121, 1122, 1124–25, 1204–29, 1230–34, 1238, 1239, 1282, 1291, 1293–94, 1296–1307, 1312–13, 1315–21, 1880 Han Zhongqing (Han Chung-ch’ing) 172 Hanguo furen (Han-kuo fu-jen) 472, 473, 477, 479, 480, 486, 499, 1428 He Shao (Ho Shao) 668, 673, 674, 681, 683, 686, 687 He Xiwen (Ho Hsi-wen) 1439 He Xun (Ho Hsün) 644, 663, 675 He Yan (Ho Yen) 587, 678, 679–80, 683, 788–89 He Zhizhang (Ho Chih-chang) 552, 557, 1203 He Zhuo (Ho Cho) 687 Helan Jinming (Ho-lan Chin-ming) 975, 983, 984 Hengjing (Heng-ching) 1656 Heshang Gong (Ho-shang kung) 125 Hezhong, Tang princess 476 Hong Mai (Hung Mai) 204 Hong Pian (Hung P’ien) 1377 Hong Sheng (Hung Sheng) 1382, 1469 Hongjing (Hung-ching) 1180 Hongren (Hung-jen) 1716, 1720, 1727–28, 1734, 1735, 1736, 1738, 1746, 1747, 1751, 1762, 1763, 1767, 1768, 1769 Hou Jingzhong (Hou Ching-chung) 1718 Hou Tang Zhuangzong (Hou T’ang Chuang-tsung) 1465 Hou Xiyi (Hou Hsi-i) 534 Hu Chubin (Hu Ch’u-pin) 555 Hu Sanxing (Hu San-hsing) 482 Hu Ziyang (Hu Tzu-yang) 995

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Index of Personal Names Huaiyi (Huai-i) 1656 Huan Tan (Huan T’an) 1916 Huan Yanfen (Huan Yen-fen) 451, 453 Huang Chao (Huang Ch’ao) 258, 541, 1097, 1438, 1773 Hui’an (Hui-an) 1736 Huibin (Hui-pin) 1586 Huiguan (Hui-kuan) 1640, 1641, 1642 Huiguang (Hui-kuang) 1640 Huiheng (Hui-heng) 1586 Huijing (Hui-ching) 1716 Huikuan (Hui-k’uan) 1586 Huikuang (Hui-k’uang) 1632 Huilin (Hui-lin) 362 Huiming (Hui-ming) 1587 Huineng (Hui-neng) 1714–42 Huisi (Hui-ssu) 1630, 1632–33, 1635, 1640, 1646 Huixiang (Hui-hsiang) 1731 Huiyuan (Hui-yüan) 1034, 1150 Jayasena 1670, 1672 Ji Kang (Chi K’ang), see Xi Kang Ji Wen (Chi Wen) 474 Ji Xu (Chi Hsü) 431, 434 Ji Yougong (Chi Yu-kung) 1377 Ji Yun (Chi Yün) 958 Jizang (Chi-tsang) 1641 Jia Dao (Chia Tao) 159, 1235, 1250 Jia Gongyan (Chia Kung-yen) 115, 121, 124, 145 Jia Song (Chia Sung) 1922–23, 1924–25, 1927 Jia Su (Chia Su) 256 Jia Zeng (Chia Tseng) 557 Jia Zhi (Chia Chih) 138, 174–75, 553, 713, 842 Jianping (Chien-p’ing), Tang princess 477 Jianzhen (Chien-chen) 1646 Jiang Fang (Chiang Fang) 1205, 1327 Jiang Jiao (Chiang Chiao) 1510 Jiang Yan (Chiang Yen) 601, 607–9, 618, 734, 1034–35, 1227–28 Jiaoran (Chiao-jan) 691 Jincheng (Chin-ch’eng), Tang princess 497, 1187 Jingang Sanzang (Chin-kang San-tsang), see Vajratripiṭaka Jing Hui (Ching Hui) 452, 453 Jingxian (Ching-hsien) 1772

1953 Jingxuan (Ching-hsüan) 1586 Jingzong (Ching-tsung), Tang emperor  69–70, 588 Kang Biansu (K’ang Pien-su) 765 Kang Chuyuan (K’ang Ch’u-yüan) 537–38 Kang Kunlun (K’ang K’un-lun) 1937 Ketugan (K’o-t’u-kan) 508, 509, 514–15 Kim Saran (Jin Silan; Chin Ssu-lan) 507 Kong Anguo (K’ung An-kuo) 109, 113–14, 125 Kong Chen (K’ung Ch’en) 552 Kong Huan (K’ung Huan) 552 Kong Jixu (K’ung Chi-hsü) 552 Kong Ruosi (K’ung Jo-ssu) 552 Kong Shao’an (K’ung Shao-an) 548, 552 Kong Shaoxin (K’ung Shao-hsin) 552 Kong Yanzhi (K’ung Yen-chih) 1103 Kong Yingda (K’ung Ying-ta) 107–8, 110, 112, 113–16, 118–24, 131, 145, 348 Kong Zhigui (K’ung Chih-kuei) 1049 Kong Zhiye (K’ung Chih-yeh) 108 Kūkai 974 Kumārajīva 1582, 1598, 1627, 1629, 1652 Kutlug 524 Lai Junchen (Lai Chün-chen) 411, 412, 413, 431, 434, 449 Lai Tian (Lai T’ien) 536, 538, 539 Lei Yongji (Lei Yung-chi) 38 Li Ao 156, 157, 158–59, 161, 163, 164, 1222, 1294, 1297, 1299, 1301–4, 1306, 1307, 1312, 1313, 1314, 1316, 1318, 1319, 1321 Li Bai (Li Pai), see Li Bo Li Bo (Li Po), 8th-c poet 172, 530, 546, 586, 590–91, 648, 670, 688, 690, 694–730, 731–61, 762–824, 827, 830, 831, 860, 861, 906, 929, 954, 967, 970, 971, 980, 981, 983, 984, 986–97, 1007, 1022–24, 1028–34, 1037–42, 1045, 1049–53, 1058–59, 1068, 1112, 1119, 1120–21, 1122–23, 1131, 1133, 1136, 1138, 1141, 1159, 1167, 1206, 1360, 1467, 1839–74 Li Bo (Li Po), 6th/7th-c. poet 1205 Li Bo (Li Po), late 8th-c. scholar 1224 Li Chao (Li Ch’ao) 861 Li Cheng (Li Ch’eng) 1205 Li Chengmei (Li Ch’eng-mei) 71 Li Chengqi (Li Ch’eng-ch’i) 62, 291

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1954 Li Chengyi (Li Ch’eng-i) 1370, 1390 Li Chengzhi (Li Ch’eng-chih) 552 Li Chong (Li Ch’ung) 1588 Li Chongjun (Li Ch’ung-chün) 63 Li Chongmao (Li Ch’ung-mao) 64, 1175, 1186 Li Cong (Li Ts’ung) 67 Li Congyuan (Li Ts’ung-yüan) 1175, 1176 Li Daoyuan (Li Tao-yüan) 1917 Li Deyu (Li Te-yü) 257, 546, 593, 1237, 1260, 1261, 1357, 1371, 1449, 1450–55, 1456, 1461, 1467, 1471, 1472, 1473 Li Du (Li Tu) 1438 Li Duocuo (Li To-ts’o) 452–53 Li Fan 65, 82, 467, 1370, 1390 Li Fang 1112 Li Fengji (Li Feng-chi) 1271 Li Fu 1111 Li Fude (Li Fu-te) 484 Li Fuguo (Li Fu-kuo) 67, 166, 499, 1073 Li Gongdu (Li Kung-tu) 1374 Li Gongzuo (Li Kung-tso) 1326–27 Li Guan (Li Kuan) 185, 1151–52, 1294 Li Guang (Li Kuang) 1887 Li Guangbi (Li Kuang-pi) 526, 529, 531, 536, 540 Li Gui (Li Kuei), 7th-c. rebel 22 Li Gui (Li Kuei), 8th-c. official 476, 480 Li Guozhe (Li Kuo-che) 509, 515 Li Han 552, 556, 1287 Li Hanguang (Li Han-kuang) 1836, 1837 Li He (Li Ho) 575, 1108, 1159, 1238, 1937 Li Heng 1175, 1176 Li Hua 155, 174–77, 183, 185, 191, 546, 552, 553, 586, 592, 1045–46, 1060–67, 1069, 1070–71, 1074, 1076–79, 1085–94, 1136–37 Li Huaixian (Li Huai-hsien) 532 Li Hung (Li Hong) 61 Li Ji (Li Chi) 560 Li Jian (Li Chien) 1308, 1311, 1316, 1317, 1321 Li Jiancheng (Li Chien-ch’eng) 14, 15, 23, 25, 30, 32, 37, 58–59, 61 Li Jiang (Li Chiang) 185 Li Jiao (Li Chiao) 424, 433, 436, 448, 565, 685, 686, 961, 1002–4, 1102, 1105, 1118–19, 1121, 1122, 1172, 1176, 1177, 1178, 1179, 1180, 1181, 1182, 1183, 1184, 1185, 1186, 1187, 1188, 1190, 1191, 1198, 1203, 1415

Index of Personal Names Li Jifu (Li Chi-fu) 1450 Li Jing (Li Ching) 26, 1922 Li Jingbo (Li Ching-po) 1175, 1179 Li Jingjian (Li Ching-chien) 187, 189 Li Jinyan (Li Chin-yen) 511 Li Jinzhong (Li Chin-chung) 426, 430 Li Jiongxiu (Li Chiung-hsiu) 1173, 1176, 1182, 1183 Li Ju (Li Chü) 66 Li Juan (Li Chüan) 516 Li Juchuan (Li Chü-ch’uan) 560–61 Li Kan (Li K’an) 1238, 1239 Li Kang (Li K’ang) 691 Li Ke (Li K’o) 257 Li Leisi (Li Lei-ssu) 1523 Li Linfu (Li Lin-fu) 126, 128, 145, 170, 175, 192, 251–52, 277, 282, 470, 524, 549, 558, 564, 588, 831, 832, 1063, 1460, 1470, 1471 Li Ling 1288–89, 1611 Li Longji (Li Lung-chi), see Xuanzong Li Mao 66 Li Mi, 7th-c. rebel 22, 23, 33, 36–37, 1792 Li Mi, 8th-c. scholar 287, 734 Li Ni 971, 977, 978, 983 Li Pogu (Li P’o-ku) 508 Li Qi (Li Ch’i) 729, 832, 973, 981, 983, 984, 985, 1122 Li Qiao (Li Ch’iao), see Li Jiao Li Qingzhao (Li Ch’ing-chao) 1166 Li Rizhi (Li Jih-chih) 1175, 1182 Li Rong (Li Jung) 71 Li Shan 965, 1490 Li Shanfu (Li Shan-fu) 1924 Li Shangjin (Li Shang-chin) 61 Li Shangyin (Li Shang-yin) 546, 558, 1108–11, 1112, 1117, 1123, 1237–38, 1239 Li Shaogu (Li Shao-ku) 508 Li Shen 1107, 1108, 1162, 1164, 1236, 1238, 1269–80, 1357, 1613 Li Shi (Li Shih), 8th/9th-c. scholar 209, 210, 1176, 1177, 1178, 1182, 1183, 1186, 1187, 1189, 1191, 1193 Li Shi (Li Shih), mid-8th-c. scholar 1937–40 Li Shimin (Li Shih-min), see Taizong Li Shizhi (Li Shih-chih) 1460, 1471 Li Shu 1374 Li Shunxing (Li Shun-hsing) 1421–23 Li Si (Li Ssu) 1504–6, 1544

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Index of Personal Names Li Siqian (Li Ssu-ch’ien) 65 Li Sixian (Li Ssu-hsien) 516 Li Siye (Li Ssu-yeh) 537 Li Sujie (Li Su-chieh) 61 Li Tai (Li T’ai) 59–60, 359 Li Tiaoyuan (Li T’iao-yüan) 1205 Li Tong (Li T’ung) 1433 Li Xian (Li Hsien), 7th-c. prince 61, 614, 616, 654 Li Xian (Li Hsien), 7th/8th-c. official 1175, 1182, 1183 Li Xingyan (Li Hsing-yen) 1176 Li Xuanzhi (Li Hsüan-chih) 124 Li Yanshou (Li Yen-shou) 1075 Li Yangbing (Li Yang-ping) 143, 688, 691, 715, 716, 1131, 1133, 1138, 1141, 1145, 1866 Li Ye (Li Yeh) 83 Li Yi (Li I), 7th/8th-c. poet 1172, 1176, 1177, 1178, 1179, 1180, 1181, 1182, 1183, 1184, 1185, 1186, 1188, 1189, 1190, 1191 Li Yi (Li I), 8th/9th-c. scholar 1236 Li Yifu (Li I-fu) 453 Li Yisun (Li I-sun) 1157–58 Li Yong (Li Yung) 559, 564–65, 733, 832, 1488–89 Li You (Li Yu) 766 Li Yu (Li Yü), 7th-c. prince 60 Li Yu (Li Yü), 9th-c. poet 587 Li Yuan (Li Yüan), see Gaozu Li Yuanchang (Li Yüan-ch’ang) 1510 Li Yuanhong (Li Yüan-hung) 290 Li Yuanji (Li Yüan-chi) 14, 23, 38 Li Yuanxiang (Li Yüan-hsiang) 76 Li Yuanyu (Li Yüan-yü) 639, 641 Li Yugan (Li Yü-kan) 508 Li Zhan (Li Chan) 453 Li Zhao (Li Chao) 1381–82, 1445, 1473 Li Zhaode (Li Chao-te) 412–14, 415, 421, 434 Li Zhengji (Li Cheng-chi) 534–35 Li Zhi (Li Chih) 1613 Li Zhong (Li Chung) 60 Li Zhongchen (Li Chung-ch’en) 534 Li Zongmin (Li Tsung-min) 1243 Liang Chongyi (Liang Ch’ung-i) 539 Liang Ji (Liang Chi) 958 Liang Qiuzi (Liang Ch’iu-tzu) 1860 Liang Su 155, 156, 183, 185–86, 204 Liang Wudi (Liang Wu-ti) 339, 1624, 1631

1955 Lin Jianyan (Lin Chien-yen) 162 Linghu Chu (Ling-hu Ch’u) 559, 1236–37, 1258–61, 1271–72 Linghu Defen (Ling-hu Te-fen) 378 Linghu Huan (Ling-hu Huan) 287 Ling Jun (Ling Chün) 149 Lingtao (Ling-t’ao) 1733, 1741 Liu Cheng (Liu Ch’eng) 476 Liu Chongjing (Liu Ch’ung-ching) 1741 Liu Deren (Liu Te-jen) 1159 Liu Fang 369–76, 380, 1450 Liu Fen 152, 256–57, 558 Liu Gongquan (Liu Kung-ch’üan) 1544 Liu Ji (Liu Chi) 46 Liu Jun (Liu Chün) 476 Liu Kai (Liu K’ai) 1110 Liu Ke (Liu K’o) 152 Liu Kuang (Liu K’uang) 133 Liu Kun (Liu K’un) 1089 Liu Mian (Liu Mien) 1450 Liu Mu 442 Liu Quanbo (Liu Ch’üan-po) 715, 717 Liu Shenxu (Liu Shen-hsü) 975, 977, 983 Liu Shi (Liu Shih) 171, 1172 Liu Sili (Liu Ssu-li) 431 Liu Su 1443, 1445, 1449 Liu Taizhen (Liu T’ai-chen) 144 Liu Weidao (Liu Wei-tao) 1877 Liu Weizhi (Liu Wei-chih) 419 Liu Wenjing (Liu Wen-ching) 33 Liu Wuzhou (Liu Wu-chou) 350 Liu Xian (Liu Hsien) 557, 1172, 1176, 1177, 1178, 1179, 1184, 1185, 1186, 1187, 1189, 1191 Liu Xiang (Liu Hsiang) 363, 364 Liu Xiaoxian (Liu Hsiao-hsien) 685 Liu Xie (Liu Hsieh) 5570, 571, 678, 680, 938, 1036–37, 1053 Liu Xin (Liu Hsin) 609, 1209, 1214, 1780–83, 1787 Liu Xu (Liu Hsü) 1883 Liu Xuan (Liu Hsüan) 110 Liu Xun (Liu Hsün) 175 Liu Yan (Liu Yen) 167, 168–69, 208, 1459, 1464 Liu Yiqing (Liu I-ch’ing) 1459 Liu Yunji (Liu Yün-chi) 1173 Liu Yuxi (Liu Yü-hsi) 156, 163, 190, 207, 209, 592, 753, 1131, 1139, 1142, 1146, 1156–57,

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1956 Liu Yuxi (Liu Yü-hsi) (cont.) 1160, 1236–38, 1258, 1260–69, 1271–72, 1273, 1281–82, 1287, 1308, 1311, 1431, 1732 Liu Zhan (Liu Chan), 8th-c. rebel 531 Liu Zhan (Liu Chan), 9th-c. official 1437 Liu Zhen (Liu Chen) 675, 681, 955, 999 Liu Zhi (Liu Chih) 129, 130, 174, 191–93, 196, 197, 198 Liu Zhiji (Liu Chih-chi) 122, 124, 125, 127, 129, 131–33, 134, 146, 149, 152, 175, 180, 191, 196, 417, 419, 1067–68, 1075, 1093, 1289, 1363–64, 1443–44 Liu Zhilüe (Liu Chih-lüeh) 1726, 1734 Liu Zhuan (Liu Chuan) 549 Liu Zhuo (Liu Cho) 110 Liu Zixuan (Liu Tzu-hsüan) 1172 Liu Zongyuan (Liu Tsung-yüan) 150, 151–52, 156, 163, 180–81, 183, 187–89, 190, 198–99, 208, 209, 210–11, 212, 342, 343, 592, 755, 1009, 1044, 1106, 1116, 1121, 1122, 1133, 1136, 1206, 1239, 1282, 1287, 1294, 1301–2, 1304–5, 1308–10, 1311, 1314, 1316, 1317–18, 1320, 1321, 1732, 1757–58 Lou Shide (Lou Shih-te) 425 Lou Ying 960 Lu Cangyong (Lu Ts’ang-yung) 669, 687–88, 690, 691, 692, 735, 1172, 1176, 1177, 1181, 1182, 1183, 1192 Lu Chengqing (Lu Ch’eng-ch’ing) 236 Lu Chun (Lu Ch’un) 146, 148, 150, 178–79, 180, 181, 186, 189, 1140–41, 1167 Lu Deming (Lu Te-ming) 105–6, 112, 148 Lu Dongmei (Lu Tung-mei) 172 Lu Guimeng (Lu Kuei-meng) 153, 162, 588 Lu Huaishen (Lu Huai-shen) 1175, 1183 Lu Ji (Lu Chi) 583, 947, 961, 1004, 1016, 1091–92 Lu Jia (Lu Chia) 357 Lu Jianzhi (Lu Chien-chih) 1547, 1551 Lu Jiong (Lu Chiung) 536, 537 Lu Jingchu (Lu Ching-ch’u) 1175, 1177, 1183 Lu Ju (Lu Chü) 552, 553 Lu Qi (Lu Ch’i) 168, 195 Lu San 157, 161 Lu Shanjing (Lu Shan-ching) 133 Lu Tong (Lu T’ung) 210, 575–76, 1110 Lu Xiang (Lu Hsiang) 983, 1131 Lu Xisheng (Lu Hsi-sheng) 1151–52, 1153

Index of Personal Names Lu Xiujing (Lu Hsiu-ching) 1805 Lu Xuangong (Lu Hsüan-kung), see Lu Zhi Lu Zhao (Lu Chao) 1936 Lu Zhaolin (Lu Chao-lin) 565, 589–90, 636–65, 839, 853, 988, 1205 Lu Zhi (Lu Chih) 155, 169, 184–85, 186, 187, 200–02 Lu Zhuan (Lu Chuan) 977 Lü Cai (Lü Ts’ai) 1129, 1140–41 Lü Chen (Lü Ch’en) 1541 Lü Dafang (Lü Ta-fang) 56 Lü Wei 187 Lü Wen 149, 150, 163, 186, 187, 188, 189, 190, 1311 Lun Qinling (Lun Ch’in-ling) 426, 430, 440 Luo Binwang (Lo Pin-wang) 565, 590, 664, 853, 988, 1132, 1153–54, 1206 Luo Gongyuan (Lo Kung-yüan) 1368, 1400–02 Luo Tianxiang (Lo T’ien-hsiang) 1376 Ma Huaisu (Ma Huai-su) 1172, 1176, 1177, 1178, 1182, 1183, 1186, 1187, 1189, 1191, 1192 Ma Hui’en (Ma Hui-en) 1488 Ma Jigao (Ma Chi-kao) 592 Ma Renshou (Ma Jen-shou) 1600 Ma Yonglong (Ma Yung-lung) 1610 Ma Yuan (Ma Yüan) 1488 Man’er (Man-erh) 1398 Maodun (Mao-tun) 522 Mao Gu (Mao Ku) 1842 Mao Heng 109 Mao Ying 1842 Mao Zhong (Mao Chung) 1842 Mei Sheng 684 Meifei (Mei-fei) 463 Meng Haoran (Meng Hao-jan) 552, 961, 970, 971, 973, 977, 983, 1122, 1130–31, 1132, 1134, 1136, 1141, 1152, 1154–55, 1162–63, 1164, 1165, 1166, 1565 Meng Jiao (Meng Chiao) 861, 1103–6, 1112, 1117, 1123, 1159, 1313, 1315, 1317–18, 1321 Meng Shaofu (Meng Shao-fu) 748 Mi Heng 663 Mi Jiarong (Mi Chia-jung) 1266 Miao Xi (Miao Hsi) 680

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1957

Index of Personal Names Ming Xilie (Ming Hsi-lieh) 1175, 1186 Mochuo (Mo-ch’o) 246, 423, 429–31, 433, 434, 437–41, 447, 524 Mo Di (Mo Ti) 160 Muzong (Mu-tsung), Tang emperor 69, 71, 1513, 1544 Nāgārjuna 1627 Nie Yizhong (Nieh I-chung) 1106, 1112 Nieli (Nieh-li) 509, 510, 514–15 Niu Hong (Niu Hung) 778 Niu Sengru (Niu Seng-ju) 257, 1237, 1260, 1357 Niuyun (Niu-yün) 1607 Odalisque, see Man’er Ouyang Tong (Ou-yang T’ung) 1550 Ouyang Xiu (Ou-yang Hsiu) 164, 363, 1102, 1109–10, 1166 Ouyang Xun (Ou-yang Hsün) 1542, 1545, 1547, 1548, 1549 Ouyang Zhan (Ou-yang Chan) 184, 1157–58 Pan Ni (P’an Ni) 1089 Pan Shizheng (P’an Shih-cheng) 1806, 1807–8, 1810, 1907 Pan Yue (P’an Yüeh) 601, 617, 947, 1464 Pang Xun (P’ang Hsün) 1438 Pang Yan (P’ang Yen) 256 Paramārtha 1735 Pei Du (P’ei Tu) 1236, 1260, 1310, 1312, 1314 Pei Guangting (P’ei Kuang-t’ing) 223, 234 Pei Hui (P’ei Hui) 476, 501 Pei Ji (P’ei Chi) 26, 33, 36, 277, 359, 1793, 1794, 1922, 1930 Pei Jin (P’ei Chin) 149 Pei Lin (P’ei Lin) 272 Pei Rong (P’ei Jung) 538 Pei Rou (P’ei Jou) 476, 480–81, 501 Pei Shenfu (P’ei Shen-fu) 1482 Pei Tingyu (P’ei T’ing-yü) 1444 Pei Xingjian (P’ei Hsing-chien) 223, 224, 225, 234, 565, 1547 Pei Yan (P’ei Yen) 415, 419 Pei Yanhan (P’ei Yen-han) 1134–35, 1136 Pei Yanling (P’ei Yen-ling) 187, 201 Pei Ziye (P’ei Tzu-yeh) 690 Peng Shuxia (P’eng Shu-hsia) 1113

Piqie (P’i-ch’ieh) 505 Pi Rixiu (P’i Jih-hsiu) 153, 162, 1160, 1165, 1239 Pi Xirui (P’i Hsi-jui) 180 Pu Qilong (P’u Ch’i-lung) 917, 933 Pugu Huai’en (P’u-ku Huai-en) 527, 529, 531 Puji (P’u-chi) 1754, 1757 Puming (P’u-ming) 1638 Qapaghan, see Mochuo Qi Gaodi (Ch’i Kao-ti) 1022 Qi Huan (Ch’i Huan) 564 Qian Qi (Ch’ien Ch’i) 591–92, 617, 1481–82 Qian Shu (Ch’ien Shu) 1704 Qian Xu (Ch’ien Hsü) 1473 Qibi Heli (Ch’i-pi Ho-li) 523 Qiji (Ch’i-chi) 1138, 1159 Qinguo furen (Ch’in-kuo fu-jen) 467, 472, 473, 476, 477, 499, 1394, 1396 Qingmai (Ch’ing-mai) 1651 Qin Shihuangdi (Ch’in Shih-huang-ti) 1915 Qiwu Qian (Ch’i-wu Ch’ien) 977, 983 Qiu Jiafu (Ch’iu Chia-fu) 1940–43, 1945, 1946 Qiu Shiliang (Ch’iu Shih-liang) 71 Qu Yuan (Ch’ü Yüan) 602, 653, 862, 945, 966, 986–87, 1088, 1208, 1224, 1355 Qu Zhan (Ch’ü Chan) 1175, 1176 Quan Deyu (Ch’üan Te-yü) 139–40, 155, 156–57, 187 Quan Yi (Ch’üan I) 362 Quan Wanji (Ch’üan Wan-chi) 362 Ren An (Jen An) 1290 Ren Hua (Jen Hua) 767, 860 Ruan Ji (Juan Chi) 676–77, 679, 1141 Rui Tingzhang (Jui T’ing-chang) 952, 960–62, 963, 977 Ruizong (Jui-tsung), Tang emperor 42, 62, 64–65, 75, 250, 410, 414, 439, 440, 977, 1422, 1429, 1452, 1549, 1653 Saichõ 1725 Sengcan (Seng-ts’an) 1746 Sengmin (Seng-min) 1587 Shan Tao (Shan T’ao) 1290 Shandao (Shan-tao) 1641

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1958 Shangguan Wan’er (Shang-kuan Wan-erh) 1004–5, 1009, 1013–17, 1019–20, 1175, 1176, 1177, 1180, 1184, 1186, 1187, 1190, 1200 Shangguan Yi (Shang-kuan I) 61, 688, 1004 Shao Sheng 1175, 1181 Shen Chuanshi (Shen Ch’uan-shih) 287–88 Shen Deqian (Shen Te-ch’ien) 941 Shen Jiji (Shen Chi-chi) 149, 264–65 Shen Junli (Shen Chün-li) 1634–35 Shen Qianyun (Shen Ch’ien-yün) 963–64 Shen Quanqi (Shen Ch’üan-ch’i) 670, 690, 961, 1007–8, 1172, 1178, 1179, 1180, 1181, 1182, 1183, 1184, 1185, 1186, 1187, 1189, 1191, 1192, 1194, 1199, 1203 Shen Xun (Shen Hsün) 1634 Shen Yazhi (Shen Ya-chih) 1122 Shen Yue (Shen Yüeh) 675, 684, 974, 998 Shenhui (Shen-hui) 1714–15, 1721, 1724, 1725, 1729, 1732, 1753–56, 1758, 1760, 1764, 1765, 1767–69 Shenqing (Shen-ch’ing) 1593–94 Shenxiu (Shen-hsiu) 1714, 1720, 1736, 1745–46, 1748–51, 1753, 1754, 1757, 1762, 1764–66, 1768–70, 1772 Shi Chaoyi (Shih Ch’ao-i) 165, 529–31, 533 Shi Hu (Shih Hu) 493 Shi Le (Shih Lo) 1411 Shi Ling (Shih Ling) 1548, 1550 Shi Siming (Shih Ssu-ming) 165, 528–30, 533, 534, 538 Shibi (Shih-pi), kaghan 35 Shiyin (Shih-yin) 1491 Shu Qi (Shu Ch’i) 135 Shūei 1712 Shunzong (Shun-tsung), Tang emperor 68, 69, 149, 150, 187–88, 203, 206, 1266 Sikong Tu (Ssu-k’ung T’u) 153, 546, 558, 1156 Śikṣānanda 1655, 1659, 1702, 1703 Śīlabhadra 1648, 1650 Sima Biao (Ssu-ma Piao) 684 Sima Chengzhen (Ssu-ma Ch’engchen) 591, 648, 692, 735, 751, 1026–27, 1835–36, 1867, 1883, 1897 Sima Guang (Ssu-ma Kuang) 17, 31, 34, 383–84, 418, 421, 449, 459, 482–501, 1363, 1435–36, 1473

Index of Personal Names Sima Qian (Ssu-ma Ch’ien) 370, 944, 1080, 1138, 1208, 1272, 1290, 1448 Sima Tan (Ssu-ma T’an) 370 Sima Xiangru (Ssu-ma Hsiang-ju) 556, 639, 648, 711, 712, 745, 785, 787, 792, 795, 1206, 1207, 1228, 1486 Sima Yu (Ssu-ma Yü) 687 Sima Zhen (Ssu-ma Chen) 125 Song Jing (Sung Ching) 451–52, 496, 1453, 1733 Song Lingwen (Sung Ling-wen) 561 Song Minqiu (Sung Min-ch’iu) 1103–7, 1109, 1112, 1123, 1376 Song Ruosi (Sung Jo-ssu) 757–60 Song Taizong (Sung T’ai-tsung) 1110, 1112, 1117 Song Wendi (Sung Wen-ti) 362 (Liu) Song Wudi (Sung Wu-ti) 1491 Song Yu (Sung Yü) 862, 948, 1088 Song Zhenzong (Sung Chen-tsung) 1110, 1113 Song Zhiwen (Sung Chih-wen) 559, 670, 671–72, 690, 693, 1017, 1172, 1176, 1177, 1178, 1179, 1180, 1181, 1187, 1190, 1194, 1201, 1203, 1733 Su Bian (Su Pien) 191 Su Bing (Su Ping) 1458 Su Dongpo (Su Tung-p’o), see Su Shi Su Gui (Su Kuei) 1183, 1191, 1457–59, 1462 Su Mian (Su Mien) 191, 376 Su Shi (Su Shih) 900, 1552 Su Shunqin (Su Shun-ch’in) 1123 Su Ting (Su T’ing) 271, 1173, 1176, 1177, 1178, 1179, 1180, 1181, 1182, 1183, 1184, 1185, 1186, 1187, 1188, 1189, 1190, 1191, 1203, 1456–60, 1462–64, 1466, 1467 Su Wu 1288, 1611 Su Xian (Su Hsien) 1458 Śubhākarsiṃha 1771–72 Suzong (Su-tsung), Tang emperor 67, 82, 164–65, 166, 167, 170, 246, 253, 476, 502, 528, 540, 841, 901, 919, 1416, 1434–36, 1453, 1544–45, 1595, 1730–31, 1741, 1851, 1945 Sui Wendi (Sui Wen-ti) 1636–37, 1789–91, 1801 Sui Yangdi (Sui Yang-ti) 13, 19–21, 58–59, 351, 1470, 1511, 1636–40, 1647, 1785, 1791–93, 1795, 1797

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1959

Index of Personal Names Sun Chu (Sun Ch’u) 601, 618 Sun Chuo (Sun Ch’o) 702, 830 Sun Di (Sun Ti) 135, 558, 691, 1063 Sun Guangxian (Sun Kuang-hsien) 1138 Sun He (Sun Ho) 162 Sun Huang 1437 Sun Ke (Sun K’o) 57 Sun Qiao (Sun Ch’iao) 162, 211, 1139, 1156 Sun Quan (Sun Ch’üan) 1175, 1176 Sun Simiao (Sun Ssu-miao) 1867 Sun Wanrong (Sun Wan-jung) 426 Sun Yan (Sun Yen) 1152, 1153 Sun Zhu (Sun Chu) 968, 975, 988 Tae Choyǒng (Da Zuorong; Ta Tso-jung)  506 Tae Munye (Da Menyi; Ta Men-i) 506–7, 511 Tae Muye (Da Wuyi; Ta Wu-i) 506–7, 511–13 Taiping (T’ai-p’ing), Tang princess 64, 89, 432, 434, 1001, 1175, 1180, 1186, 1198, 1452, 1549 Taizong (T’ai-tsung), Tang emperor 13–16, 17–40, 45, 60, 73, 75, 76, 82, 94, 106, 107, 117, 122, 141, 142, 217, 243, 244–45, 247, 248, 259, 284, 286, 288, 330, 351, 352, 354, 356, 358, 360, 377–80, 384, 389, 401, 403, 415, 416, 421, 426, 437, 521–23, 524, 539, 550, 553, 556, 561, 690, 731, 867, 1193, 1447, 1470, 1510, 1512, 1516, 1542, 1547, 1548, 1623, 1647, 1650–52, 1654, 1656, 1658, 1802, 1806 Tan Yu (T’an Yü) 1135–36, 1139, 1154, 1168 Tanzang (T’an-tsang) 1586 Tang Bi (T’ang Pi) 1792 Tang Fu (T’ang Fu) 563–64 Tang Jian (T’ang Chien) 26 Tang Xiujing (T’ang Hsiu-ching) 422, 448, 450 Tang Yanqian (T’ang Yen-ch’ien) 728–29 Tang Ying (T’ang Ying) 290 Tang Yuanzhe (T’ang Yüan-che) 1175, 1187 Tao Han (T’ao Han) 975, 983 Tao Hongjing (T’ao Hung-ching) 1022, 1024, 1786, 1805, 1829, 1877, 1898 Tao Qian (T’ao Ch’ien) 842, 905, 906, 911, 966, 1022, 1141, 1240–41, 1244 Tao Yuanming (T’ao Yüan-ming), see Tao Qian

Tian Chengsi (T’ien Ch’eng-ssu) 532, 533, 1408, 1481, 1498 Tian Guidao (T’ien Kuei-tao) 433 Tian Shengong (T’ien Shen-kung) 534 Tian Wenxiu (T’ien Wen-hsiu) 1831 Tian Youyan (T’ien Yu-yen) 1867 Tongying (T’ung-ying) 1716, 1717 Tunyugu (T’un-yü-ku) 505 Vajrabodhi 1771–72 Vajratripiṭaka 1368, 1400–02 Vasubandhu 1648 Wanchun (Wan-ch’un), Tang princess 479 Wang, Tang empress 66 Wang Anshi (Wang An-shih) 212, 895 Wang Bi (Wang Pi) 109, 110, 125, 347, 677 Wang Bo (Wang Po) 565, 590, 597–635, 637, 654–55, 660–63, 664, 665, 677, 988, 1075 Wang Cai (Wang Ts’ai) 1552 Wang Can (Wang Ts’an) 1089 Wang Changling (Wang Ch’ang-ling) 552, 827, 954, 957, 959, 961, 971, 975, 978, 979, 983, 1000, 1122 Wang Chong (Wang Ch’ung) 180, 347, 1848, 1936 Wang Chongrong (Wang Ch’ung-jung) 560 Wang Dang (Wang Tang) 1474 Wang Defei (Wang Te-fei) 70 Wang Fanzhi (Wang Fan-chih) 1098, 1611 Wang Fu 1928 Wang Fusheng (Wang Fu-sheng) 61 Wang Fuzhi (Wang Fu-chih), 17th-c. scholar 205 Wang Fuzhi (Wang Fu-chih), 7th-c. official 599–600 Wang Guangfu (Wang Kuang-fu) 1187 Wang Han 1203 Wang Hong (Wang Hung) 1474 Wang Ji (Wang Chi), 8th-c. official 478 Wang Ji (Wang Chi), 7th-c. poet 586, 1129, 1130, 1140–41, 1167 Wang Jian (Wang Chien) 1236, 1924, 1925 Wang Jin (Wang Chin) 1129, 1131 Wang Jing (Wang Ching) 1175, 1176 Wang Jiyou (Wang Chi-yu) 971, 983, 985 Wang Ju (Wang Chü) 560

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1960 Wang Lin 1631 Wang Luoqing (Wang Lo-ch’ing) 493 Wang Maoyuan (Wang Mao-yüan) 559 Wang Min 1420 Wang Mingsheng (Wang Ming-sheng) 205 Wang Pei (Wang P’ei) 187, 203–4 Wang Pu (Wang P’u) 1173 Wang Qi (Wang Ch’i), 8th/9th-c. poet  593–94, 1205 Wang Qi (Wang Ch’i), 9th-c. poet 594–95 Wang Qi (Wang Ch’i) 18th-c. scholar 694, 730 Wang Qisun (Wang Ch’i-sun) 585 Wang Renyu (Wang Jen-yü) 1449, 1465–70, 1471 Wang Rong (Wang Jung) 675 Wang Sengqian (Wang Seng-ch’ien)  1543–44 Wang Shao 1790 Wang Shichong (Wang Shih-ch’ung) 550 Wang Shiyuan (Wang Shih-yüan) 1130–31, 1132, 1152, 1154, 1163, 1165, 1166, 1835 Wang Shoucheng (Wang Shou-ch’eng) 70 Wang Shuwen (Wang Shu-wen) 187, 202–12, 1266 Wang Sili (Wang Ssu-li) 498, 537 Wang Wan 971, 983, 1203 Wang Wei, 7th-c. official 23, 25, 35, 38 Wang Wei, 8th-c. poet 546, 573–75, 581, 582, 753–55, 826, 827, 829, 830, 835, 842, 843, 844, 846, 861, 957, 961, 970, 971, 972–73, 979, 980, 983, 1000, 1015, 1019, 1036, 1068, 1122, 1129, 1141, 1153, 1360, 1426, 1427, 1564–65, 1721–22, 1724, 1726, 1856 Wang Wujing (Wang Wu-ching) 551 Wang Xi (Wang Hsi) 1377 Wang Xianzhi (Wang Hsien-chih) 541 Wang Xiaojie (Wang Hsiao-chieh) 422, 425, 433 Wang Xizhi (Wang Hsi-chih) 217, 1540, 1542, 1546, 1548, 1550 Wang Xuance (Wang Hsüan-ts’e) 1673, 1678 Wang Xun (Wang Hsün) 1935, 1940 Wang Xuzhen (Wang Hsü-chen) 1836 Wang Yan (Wang Yen) 1805–6 Wang Yanshou (Wang Yen-shou) 587, 788 Wang Yi (Wang I) 945, 952, 961

Index of Personal Names Wang Yifang (Wang I-fang) 639 Wang Yifu (Wang I-fu) 1411 Wang Yin 767 Wang Yu (Wang Yü) 1929 Wang Yuangan (Wang Yüan-kan) 124 Wang Zan (Wang Tsan) 1152–53 Wang Zhongshu (Wang Chung-shu) 563 Wang Zhun (Wang Chun) 1460, 1473 Wei, Tang empress 63–64, 408, 1001, 1002, 1175, 1186, 1198 Wei Ai 1144 Wei Anshi (Wei An-shih) 448, 450, 1175, 1183 Wei Biaowei (Wei Piao-wei) 152 Wei Chengqing (Wei Ch’eng-ch’ing) 1010 Wei E (Wei O) 500, 501 Wei Fangjin (Wei Fang-chin) 486, 487, 488, 499 Wei Hao 715, 729, 1847 Wei Hongzhi (Wei Hung-chih) 362 Wei Jiansu (Wei Chien-su) 487, 488, 499, 501 Wei Kang (Wei K’ang) 1456, 1467 Wei Lun 538 Wei Qu (Wei Ch’ü) 1730, 1736, 1740 Wei Shaodi (Wei Shao-ti) 1541 Wei Shu 322, 1061, 1067, 1069, 1072, 1080 Wei Shuyu (Wei Shu-yü) 1552 Wei Sili (Wei Ssu-li) 217, 445–46, 1006, 1008–9, 1010, 1015, 1017, 1172, 1181, 1183, 1184, 1189, 1457, 1459 Wei Tao (Wei T’ao) 1162–63, 1164, 1166 Wei Ting (Wei T’ing) 378 Wei Wutian (Wei Wu-t’ien) 1510 Wei Xiaowendi (Wei Hsiao-wen-ti) 372, 1676 Wei Yanshen (Wei Yen-shen) 1521 Wei Yingwu (Wei Ying-wu) 1361, 1878, 1879–80 Wei Yuandan (Wei Yüan-tan) 1172, 1178, 1182, 1183, 1186, 1187, 1189, 1191 Wei Yuanfu (Wei Yüan-fu) 194–95 Wei Yuansong (Wei Yüan-sung) 1796–97, 1800–01, 1802 Wei Yuanzhong (Wei Yüan-chung) 421, 444, 445 Wei Zhaoxun (Wei Chao-hsün) 477 Wei Zheng (Wei Cheng) 32, 33, 40, 108, 126, 141, 346–66, 1075, 1512, 1548, 1549

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1961

Index of Personal Names Wei Zhiyi (Wei Chih-i) 187, 203, 204, 210 Wei Zhuang (Wei Chuang) 1144–45 Wen Daya (Wen Ta-ya) 11–16, 24–25, 27–29, 34, 37, 38, 1792–93 Wen Dayou (Wen Ta-yu) 13 Wendi (Wen-ti), Sui emperor 18, 21 Wen Tianxiang (Wen T’ien-hsiang) 932 Wen Tingyun (Wen T’ing-yün) 546, 1107–8 Wen Yanbo (Wen Yen-po) 13 Wenzong (Wen-tsung), Tang emperor 70, 71, 144–45, 255, 257, 1236, 1246, 1266, 1362, 1372, 1450–51, 1455, 1596 Wu, Tang empress, see Wu Zetian Wu Chengsi (Wu Ch’eng-ssu) 412, 413, 434, 438 Wu Huifei (Wu Hui-fei) 66, 463, 465, 477 Wu Jing (Wu Ching) 142, 287, 290, 556, 1067, 1068, 1069, 1443 Wu Pingyi (Wu P’ing-i) 1171, 1172, 1173–74, 1183, 1184, 1185, 1186, 1187, 1188, 1191, 1192, 1197, 1730, 1732, 1733 Wu Rong (Wu Jung) 978 Wu Sansi (Wu San-ssu) 63, 417, 419, 436, 444, 448, 451, 453 Wu Shaowei (Wu Shao-wei) 552, 559 Wu Shihuo (Wu Shih-huo) 26 Wu Tongxuan (Wu T’ung-hsüan) 563 Wu Yanxiu (Wu Yen-hsiu) 438, 1177, 1459 Wu Yizong (Wu I-tsung) 431, 433 Wu Youning (Wu Yu-ning) 417 Wu Youyi (Wu Yu-i) 448, 692 Wu Yun (Wu Yün) 587, 1053–58, 1837, 1875–1914 Wu Zetian, Wu Zhao (Wu Tse-t’ien, Wu Chao), Tang empress and Zhou monarch 33, 42, 45, 60, 62, 73, 89, 94, 200, 220, 229, 246, 248–52, 255, 258, 337, 367–403, 404–54, 546, 551, 558, 559, 667, 692, 734, 764–65, 778–79, 801, 1004, 1006, 1010, 1014, 1090, 1196, 1426, 1468, 1549, 1551, 1587, 1595, 1615, 1623, 1626, 1628, 1647, 1653–56, 1658–60, 1666, 1668–70, 1673–1711, 1744, 1745–46, 1804 Wu Zhi (Wu Chih) 1290 Wu Zhinan (Wu Chih-nan) 743, 751 Wu Zhonggui (Wu Chung-kuei) 439 Wu Zixu (Wu Tzu-hsü) 723–24

Wujincang (Wu-chin-ts’ang) 1726 Wuzong (Wu-tsung), Tang emperor 71, 1455, 1572 Xi Fan (Hsi Fan) 1288 Xi Kang (Hsi K’ang) 676–77, 679, 1290, 1878, 1885, 1891–92 Xi Qiyu (Hsi Ch’i-yü) 1377 Xi Wenbing (Hsi Wen-ping) 1138–39 Xi Yunqing (Hsi Yün-ch’ing) 1132, 1153 Xiahou Duan (Hsia-hou Tuan) 548 Xianshou (Hsien-shou), see Fazang Xianzong (Hsien-tsung), Tang emperor 68, 69, 73, 144, 163, 262, 541, 1513, 1741 Xiang Xiu (Hsiang Hsiu) 1878 Xiang Yu (Hsiang Yü) 703 Xiao Cun (Hsiao Ts’un) 175 Xiao Gang (Hsiao Kang) 951 Xiao Mian (Hsiao Mien) 1311, 1316, 1321 Xiao Song (Hsiao Sung) 223, 303, 1454, 1467 Xiao Tong (Hsiao T’ung) 948–52, 954, 956, 959, 962, 997, 1074 Xiao Yi (Hsiao I) 950, 1587, 1631, 1634 Xiao Yingshi (Hsiao Ying-shih) 133–34, 138, 174–76, 549, 552, 553, 558, 588, 592, 1060–65, 1068–71, 1074, 1077–81, 1087–90, 1093, 1137 Xiao Yu (Hsiao Yü) 74 Xiao Zhizhong (Hsiao Chih-chung) 1175, 1176, 1179, 1182, 1183, 1454 Xie An (Hsieh An) 1007 Xie Guan (Hsieh Kuan) 1205 Xie Jian (Hsieh Chien) 1721, 1729 Xie Jin (Hsieh Chin) 1552 Xie Lingyun (Hsieh Ling-yün) 580, 702, 711, 906, 1053 Xie Qianguang (Hsieh Ch’ien-kuang) 263 Xie San (Hsieh San) 668, 671, 673–74 Xie Song (Hsieh Sung) 532 Xie Tiao (Hsieh T’iao) 670, 675, 988 Xie Wan (Hsieh Wan) 668, 671, 672, 1175, 1176 Xie Zhuang (Hsieh Chuang) 1492 Xin Tifou (Hsin T’i-fou) 1175, 1176 Xincheng, Tang princess 477 Xing Hepu (Hsing Ho-p’u) 1460 Xingtao (Hsing-t’ao) 1730, 1731 Xizong (Hsi-tsung), Tang emperor 72

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1962 Xu Gan (Hsü Kan) 675 Xu Hao (Hsü Hao) 1547, 1549–50 Xu Hun (Hsü Hun) 578–80, 1142–43 Xu Jian (Hsü Chien) 124, 1172, 1187, 1203 Xu Jingzong (Hsü Ching-tsung) 31, 32, 33 Xu Ling (Hsü Ling) 951–53, 961, 1635 Xu Mengrong (Hsü Meng-jung) 755 Xu Mi (Hsü Mi) 1890 Xu Qidan (Hsü Ch’i-tan) 558 Xu Shen (Hsü Shen) 1541, 1928 Xu Shixu (Hsü Shih-hsü) 26 Xu Song (Hsü Sung) 238, 244, 245, 250 Xu Yanbo (Hsü Yen-po) 1172, 1178, 1179, 1183, 1184, 1185, 1187, 1188, 1189, 1191 Xu Yougong (Hsü Yu-kung) 411, 421 Xiuanzong (Hsiuan-tsung), 9th-c.Tang emperor 71, 73, 95, 1430, 1483, 1597 Xuanchang (Hsüan-ch’ang) 1594 Xuanjing (Hsüan-ching) 1586 Xuansu (Hsüan-su) 1757 Xuanying (Hsüan-ying) 1651 Xuanzang (Hsüan-tsang) 1615, 1630, 1648, 1649–53, 1670–73, 1683, 1692 Xuanzhuang (Hsüan-chuang) 1180 Xuanzong (Hsüan-tsung), 8th-c. Tang emperor 42, 58, 64–68, 72, 73, 82, 83, 84, 94, 124–26, 129, 131, 133, 135, 138, 143, 164, 170, 225, 252–53, 255, 277, 289, 301, 329, 330, 338, 424, 455, 461–81, 482–502, 504, 507, 508, 511–17, 547, 557, 588, 732, 734–35, 763, 765, 831, 839, 841, 867, 918, 967, 971, 1025, 1026–27, 1067, 1068, 1360–62, 1370–71, 1391, 1393, 1398–99, 1401–6, 1409–21, 1426, 1431, 1434–36, 1442, 1445, 1451–54, 1456–57, 1459, 1460–64, 1466–68, 1470, 1471, 1472, 1473, 1477–82, 1485, 1490, 1492, 1498, 1499, 1502, 1510, 1522, 1549, 1550, 1615, 1624, 1625, 1830–31, 1834, 1837–38, 1847, 1929, 1930, 1944, 1945 Xuanzong (Hsüan-tsung), 9th-c. Tang emperor, see Xiuanzong Xue Daoheng (Hsüeh Tao-heng) 13 Xue Erniang (Hsüeh Erh-niang) 1932–33, 1934 Xue Feng (Hsüeh Feng) 549 Xue Huaiyi (Hsüeh Huai-i) 410, 423, 424, 442, 764

Index of Personal Names Xue Ji (Hsüeh Chi) 867, 1172, 1176, 1177, 1182, 1183, 1187, 1189, 1192, 1203, 1457, 1459, 1547, 1549–52 Xue Jian (Hsüeh Chien) 1736–37 Xue Jingxian (Hsüeh Ching-hsien) 476, 502, 558 Xue Ju (Hsüeh Chü) 975, 983 Xue Neng (Hsüeh Neng) 1473 Xue Xiu (Hsüeh Hsiu) 66 Xue Yao (Hsüeh Yao) 1493–98, 1502 Yan Chaoyin (Yan Ch’ao-yin), see Yan Zhaoyin Yan Fang (Yen Fang) 971, 983 Yan Hui (Yen Hui) 138, 157, 160 Yan Liben (Yen Li-pen) 1510 Yan Lide (Yen Li-te) 1510 Yan Shansi (Yen Shan-ssu) 411 Yan Shigu (Yen Shih-ku) 106–7, 114, 142 Yan Wu (Yen Wu) 846 Yan Yanzhi (Yen Yen-chih) 362, 725 Yan Yu (Yen Yü) 964 Yan Yuansun (Yen Yüan-sun) 1540–42 Yan Zhaoyin (Yen Chao-yin) 559, 1172, 1178, 1183, 1185, 1186, 1187, 1203 Yan Zhenqing (Yen Chen-ch’ing) 135, 218, 525, 691, 901, 1061–63, 1066–67, 1069, 1071–72, 1077, 1079, 1084, 1086–87, 1090, 1154, 1540–41, 1544–45, 1547 Yan’an (Yen-an), Tang princess 476 Yanhe (Yen-ho), Tang princess 479 Yansa (Yen-sa), Tang princess 1370, 1419 Yanzong (Yen-tsung) 1586, 1683 Yang Chongjing (Yang Ch’ung-ching) 1731 Yang Chuo (Yang Ch’o) 475, 479 Yang Guang (Yang Kuang), see Sui Yangdi Yang Guifei (Yang Kuei-fei) 164, 455–81, 482, 500–01, 527, 588, 839, 1360, 1361–62, 1370, 1398–99, 1401, 1409, 1414, 1417, 1422, 1432, 1459, 1460, 1464, 1468, 1469, 1470, 1471, 1473 Yang Guozhong (Yang Kuo-chung) 164, 170, 455, 456, 470, 471, 474, 475, 476, 478–80, 483, 485–86, 488–90, 492, 493, 495, 499, 501, 525, 527, 839, 1073, 1394, 1413, 1460, 1468, 1471 Yang He (Yang Ho) 1152, 1153 Yang Hui 66

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Index of Personal Names Yang Huizhi (Yang Hui-chih), 8th/9th-c. scholar 1311, 1314, 1320 Yang Huizhi (Yang Hui-chih), 8th-c. sculptor 1427 Yang Kan (Yang K’an) 1740 Yang Jian (Yang Chien) 475, 479 Yang Jingshu (Yang Ching-shu) 1404 Yang Jiong (Yang Chiung) 557, 563, 565, 590, 1075, 1205 Yang Lian (Yang Lien) 1174, 1176, 1183 Yang Lingben (Yang Ling-pen) 472 Yang Ning 1224 Yang Ping (Yang P’ing) 1224 Yang Qi (Yang Ch’i) 473, 477 Yang Shidao (Yang Shih-tao) 1547 Yang Shixun (Yang Shih-hsün) 115, 145 Yang Shou 1927–28 Yang Shouliang (Yang Shou-liang) 561 Yang Sifu (Yang Ssu-fu) 71 Yang Wan 137, 154, 155, 241, 253–54 Yang Wei 1586 Yang Xi (Yang Hsi), son of Yang Guozhong 501 Yang Xi (Yang Hsi), 4th-c. priestmedium 1785–86, 1798 Yang Xiong (Yang Hsiung) 347, 556, 785, 787, 1206, 1207, 1228, 1229 Yang Yan (Yang Yen) 168–69, 173, 195, 200, 202, 208 Yang Xian (Yang Hsien) 473, 477 Yang Xianfei (Yang Hsien-fei) 70, 71 Yang Xuan (Yang Hsüan) 475, 499 Yang Xuanguan (Yang Hsüan-kuan) 21–22 Yang Xuangui (Yang Hsüan-kuei) 475, 477 Yang Xuanyan (Yang Hsüan-yen) 472–73, 477, 479 Yang Yi (Yang I) 903, 1110–11, 1123 Yang Yizhi (Yang I-chih) 1224–27 Yang Yuhuan (Yang Yü-huan), see Yang Guifei Yang Yuqing (Yang Yü-ch’ing) 1312, 1315, 1321 Yang Zhijian (Yang Chih-chien) 218 Yang Zhu (Yang Chu) 160, 162 Yao Chong (Yao Ch’ung) 1453–54, 1461, 1466, 1472, 1473, 1522 Yao He (Yao Ho) 1235, 1238, 1250 Yao Shi (Yao Shih), see Yue Shi Yao Xuan (Yao Hsüan) 1114–15, 1207 Ye Fashan (Yeh Fa-shan) 1402

1963 Ye Jingneng (Yeh Ching-neng) 1944 Yijing (I-ching) 1655, 1666, 1691–92 Yixing (I-hsing) 1772 Yin Fan 669, 670, 853, 954–60, 961, 962, 963, 965, 967–1000 Yin Keng (Yin K’eng) 663, 684 Yin Lihua (Yin Li-hua) 1875 Yin Yin 282 Yin You (Yin Yu) 152 Yinzong (Yin-tsung) 1717, 1720, 1722, 1724, 1728, 1735 Ying Qu (Ying Ch’ü) 680 Ying Yang 675 Yingniang (Ying-niang) 1398, 1399 Yixing (I-hsing) 1027 Yizong (I-tsung), Tang emperor 72 Yu Chao’en (Yü Ch’ao-en) 1386, 1439 Yu Hongzhi (Yü Hung-chih) 71 Yu Ji (Yü Chi) 1802 Yu Jingye (Yü Ching-yeh) 1175, 1183 Yu Shinan (Yü Shih-nan) 1542, 1546, 1547, 1548, 1549, 1551–52 Yu Xi (Yü Hsi) 684 Yu Xilie (Yü Hsi-lieh) 131 Yu Xin (Yü Hsin) 663, 690, 853, 863, 864, 1009, 1799 Yu Zhao (Yü Chao) 767 Yuzhen (Yü-chen), Tang princess 1847 Yuan Chengjia (Yüan Ch’eng-chia) 550 Yuan Chengxu (Yüan Ch’eng-hsü) 550, 561 Yuan Danqiu (Yüan Tan-ch’iu) 745, 989 Yuan Dexiu (Yüan Te-hsiu) 563, 1063 Yuan Haowen (Yüan Hao-wen) 1119 Yuan Jie (Yüan Chieh) 171, 175, 176, 900–01, 923–24, 962–64, 1061–67, 1070–74, 1078–79, 1081–83, 1086, 1089–90, 1092–93 Yuan Jing (Yüan Ching) 670 Yuan Mei (Yüan Mei) 941 Yuan Qianyao (Yüan Ch’ien-yao) 1454 Yuan Qie’er (Yüan Ch’ieh-erh) 1427 Yuan Shuji (Yüan Shu-chi) 452 Yuan Siyi (Yüan Ssu-i) 493 Yuan Wanqing (Yüan Wan-ch’ing) 552, 560 Yuan Xian (Yüan Hsien) 550 Yuan Xingchong (Yüan Hsing-ch’ung) 126, 127, 134 Yuan Yan (Yüan Yen) 989

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1964 Yuan Zai (Yüan Tsai) 167, 168, 173 Yuan Zhen (Yüan Chen) 825, 860, 905, 924, 926, 1108, 1127–28, 1133–34, 1140, 1143, 1149, 1155, 1157, 1169–70, 1205, 1236, 1239, 1246, 1253, 1261, 1264–65, 1269, 1270, 1271, 1280, 1282, 1287, 1312, 1314, 1316, 1318, 1319, 1322, 1326–59, 1361–62, 1364, 1366, 1378, 1432, 1508, 1520, 1565, 1925–26, 1927 Yuanxian (Yüan-hsien), Tang princess 1452 Yue Shi (Yüeh Shih) 457–58, 1123, 1432, 1469 Yun Banqian (Yün Pan-ch’ien) 259–60 Yuwen Huaji (Yü-wen Hua-chi) 21 Yuwen Rong (Yü-wen Jung) 201, 340 Yuwen Shiji (Yü-wen Shih-chi) 26 Yuwen Tai (Yü-wen T’ai) 367 Zeng Gong (Tseng Kung) 1109–10, 1117 Zeng Shen (Tseng Shen) 160 Zeng Yanhe (Tseng Yen-ho) 960 Zeng Zao (Tseng Tsao) 1883 Zhanran (Chan-jan) 182–83 Zhang Bi (Chang Pi) 1159 Zhang Biao (Chang Piao) 1878–79 Zhang Chang (Chang Ch’ang) 1928 Zhang Changyi (Chang Ch’ang-i) 443 Zhang Changzong (Chang Ch’angtsung) 431–32, 442, 443, 444, 450–52, 551 Zhang Daoling (Chang Tao-ling) 1829 Zhang Fuying (Chang Fu-ying) 1610 Zhang Guo (Chang Kuo) 1421, 1423 Zhang Haohao (Chang Hao-hao) 1237 Zhang Heng (Chang Heng) 587, 787, 790–91, 792, 1209, 1486 Zhang Hongjing (Chang Hung-ching) 533 Zhang Hu (Chang Hu) 1473 Zhang Hua (Chang Hua) 663, 668, 673, 674, 686, 947, 1089 Zhang Huaiguan (Chang Huai-kuan) 1547, 1552 Zhang Ji (Chang Chi), 8th/9th-c. poet 160, 861, 1112, 1236, 1298, 1299–1300, 1318, 1878, 1880–81, 1924 Zhang Ji (Chang Chi), 10th-c. scholar 1111–12 Zhang Jianfeng (Chang Chien-feng) 1221 Zhang Jianzhi (Chang Chien-chih) 438, 451, 452

Index of Personal Names Zhang Jiazhen (Chang Chia-chen) 1456 Zhang Jingman (Chang Ching-man) 1741 Zhang Jingyuan (Chang Ching-yüan) 1175, 1176 Zhang Jiuling (Chang Chiu-ling) 192, 504, 508, 510–17, 590, 827, 1040–45, 1203, 1411, 1415, 1460, 1467, 1470, 1471 Zhang Jiuzhang (Chang Chiu-chang) 478 Zhang Ju (Chang Chü) 1519 Zhang Junfang (Chang Chün-fang) 1882 Zhang Keqin (Chang K’o-ch’in) 1931–32, 1933 Zhang Lei (Chang Lei) 1240 Zhang Liang (Chang Liang) 1784 Zhang Qia (Chang Ch’ia) 1181 Zhang Rendan (Chang Jen-tan) 1182, 1188 Zhang Shen (Chang Shen) 143, 154 Zhang Shougui (Chang Shou-kuei) 509, 515, 516 Zhang Shuai (Chang Shuai) 1492 Zhang Taoguang (Chang T’ao-kuang) 474, 479 Zhang Tingfang (Chang T’ing-fang) 1102, 1118 Zhang Tinggui (Chang T’ing-kuei) 565 Zhang Wanfu (Chang Wan-fu) 1807, 1808–10, 1811, 1813, 1814, 1816, 1819, 1825 Zhang Wei (Chang Wei) 832, 983 Zhang Weijin (Chang Wei-chin) 538 Zhangsun Wuji (Chang-sun Wu-chi) 108 Zhang Xi (Chang Hsi) 1175, 1176, 1181 Zhang Xie (Chang Hsieh) 836 Zhang Xingcheng (Chang Hsing-ch’eng) 431 Zhang Yanbao (Chang Yen-pao) 1609 Zhang Yi (Chang I) 155 Zhang Yichao (Chang I-ch’ao) 1369 Zhang Yizhi (Chang I-chih) 431–32, 442, 444, 450–52, 551, 559, 1010 Zhang Yue (Chang Yüeh) 125, 142, 247, 290, 303, 322, 335, 340, 546, 766, 835, 1006–7, 1010, 1075, 1121–22, 1173, 1184, 1185, 1187, 1188, 1189, 1190, 1191, 1193, 1203, 1452–54, 1473, 1476–77, 1483–86, 1487, 1500–02, 1733 Zhang Yungu (Chang Yün-ku) 553, 554 Zhang Zai (Chang Tsai) 675 Zhang Zhengze (Chang Cheng-tse) 172 Zhang Zhongjin (Chang Chung-chin) 532

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Index of Personal Names Zhang Zhuo (Chang Cho) 218, 1445 Zhao Gu (Chao Ku) 1473 Zhao Heping (Chao Ho-p’ing) 1291 Zhao Kuang (Chao K’uang) 134, 138, 140, 146, 147–48, 150, 177–78, 179, 180, 181, 199–200 Zhao Lifei (Chao Li-fei) 66 Zhao Wangshu (Chao Wang-shu) 1935 Zhao Yanzhao (Chao Yen-chao) 1172, 1176, 1177, 1178, 1179, 1181, 1182, 1183, 1184, 1185, 1186, 1187, 1188, 1198 Zhao Yi (Chao I) 642–44, 647, 648, 1543 Zhao Zan (Chao Tsan) 227 Zhao Zhi (Chao Chih) 1288–90 Zhaozong (Chao-tsung), Tang emperor 72, 561, 1373 Zhao Zongyi (Chao Tsung-i) 262 Zhenhui (Chen-hui) 1587, 1598 Zheng Chuhui (Cheng Ch’u-hui) 1371, 1372, 1373, 1449, 1455–61, 1467, 1468, 1471, 1472, 1473, 1479–81 Zheng Gu (Cheng Ku) 1473 Zheng Guan (Cheng Kuan) 1374 Zheng Hao (Cheng Hao) 1438 Zheng Huan (Cheng Huan) 1371 Zheng Juzhong (Cheng Chü-chung) 1439 Zheng Lu (Cheng Lu) 1438 Zheng Nanjin (Cheng Nan-chin) 1175, 1183 Zheng Qi (Cheng Ch’i) 1373, 1439, 1449, 1461–65, 1466, 1468 Zheng Shao (Cheng Shao) 1552 Zheng Shiyi (Cheng Shih-i) 554–55 Zheng Tan (Cheng T’an) 145 Zheng Xuan (Cheng Hsüan) 109–10, 111, 113–14 Zheng Yin (Cheng Yin) 1172, 1176, 1177, 1178, 1182, 1184, 1186, 1187, 1189, 1190, 1191 Zheng Yu (Cheng Yü) 1364–1440, 1449 Zheng Yuqing (Cheng Yü-ch’ing) 144, 1291, 1371, 1456 Zhi Tandi (Chih T’an-ti) 1034 Zhi Yu (Chih Yü) 946–48, 949 Zhiguang (Chih-kuang) 1716, 1735 Zhijing (Chih-ching) 1683–85 Zhishi (Chih-shih) 1623 Zhixian (Chih-hsien) 1656 Zhiyan (Chih-yen) 1658

1965 Zhiyao (Chih-yao) 1716, 1717–18, 1720, 1726 Zhiyi (Chih-i) 1626, 1629, 1630, 1631–47, 1757, 1761 Zhiyuan (Chih-yüan) 1734 Zhizao (Chih-tsao) 1639 Zhong Hong (Chung Hung) 673–74, 690, 938, 952, 958 Zhong Rong (Chung Jung), see Zhong Hong Zhong You (Chung Yu) 1544 Zhongzong (Chung-tsung), Tang emperor 61–63, 75, 89, 94, 246, 250, 330, 391, 405–6, 414, 419, 430, 435, 436, 439, 440, 444, 445, 447, 451, 453–54, 497, 654, 801, 1001, 1002, 1004, 1006, 1014, 1017, 1171–72, 1173, 1174, 1175, 1177, 1180, 1182, 1183, 1184, 1185, 1186, 1188, 1189, 1190, 1191, 1193, 1194, 1197–1200, 1492–93, 1549, 1594, 1653, 1659, 1720 Zhou Bida (Chou Pi-ta) 1113–14 Zhou Fengshu (Chou Feng-shu) 1586 Zhou Ju (Chou Chü) 411 Zhou Liyong (Chou Li-yung) 1175, 1176 Zhou Shao (Chou Shao) 1587 Zhou Shengui (Chou Shen-kuei) 1586 Zhou Wudi (Chou Wu-ti) 1790–91, 1802 Zhou Xing (Chou Hsing) 411, 449 Zhou Yanyun (Chou Yen-yün) 1457–58 Zhu Changwen (Chu Ch’ang-wen) 1552 Zhu Jingze (Chu Ching-tse) 411 Zhu Qingming (Chu Ch’ing-ming) 1192 Zhu Quanzhong (Chu Ch’üan-chung) 561 Zhu Wen (Chu Wen) 479 Zhu Xi (Chu Hsi) 164, 196, 931–32 Zhu Yao (Chu Yao) 591, 785, 1204, 1206 Zhu Zishe (Chu Tzu-she) 31 Zhufu Yan (Chu-fu Yen) 724 Zhuge Liang (Chu-ko Liang) 156, 856, 1007 Zhuo Wenjun (Cho Wen-chün) 711, 712 Zisi (Tzu-ssu) 120, 160 Zixia (Tzu-hsia) 157 Zong Chuke (Tsung Ch’u-k’o) 1172, 1177, 1179, 1182, 1183, 1185, 1187 Zong Jinqing (Tsung Chin-ch’ing) 1175, 1181, 1186 Zongmi (Tsung-mi) 1661, 1732, 1764–65 Zu Yong (Tsu Yung) 973, 977, 983 Zuo Si (Tso Ssu) 1016, 1089

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